Startups in Austin?
Submitted by softwarejanitor on Thu, 11/01/2007 - 11:27am.
Someone asked me the other day whether I knew of any new startups in the Austin area... I had to answer "not really". Seems like it has been really slow or I'm just not "linked in" to the right people anymore. Or are all the new start-ups in "bootstrapping" or "stealth" modes and just haven't made their presence known much? I get the feeling from a lot of the startups that have gotten off the ground over the past few years that with the lack of capital out there they've had to start out a lot smaller and move a lot slower in the beginning.
Well, there are some I know about, but by nature they are not well publicized in the early stages....so it's hard to say.
Matt
--
I understand if these startups are operating in "stealth" mode or whatever and don't want you to talk about their names or what they are doing... but can you kind of give an estimate on how many early stage startups are out there, and approximately how many people are typically involved in them? The reason is some people I know are kind of trying to figure out some ballparks on the size of the employment base in startups. We've got some disagreements between people who think there are lots of them and others who think it is a fairly insignificant number. My personal opinion is its towards the smaller side but not quite insignificant.
Well,
TK20 worked out of s.bucks in the Arb for nearly 12 months ;). They are now profitable and buying their own coffee for the office.
Blastro worked out of coffee houses and home for nearly 3 yrs. Its now a premier destination for streaming media.
If me and my guys count we were at Unos today, Primo 360 yesterday...
I know that if a VC approached us today we would turn them down...not because we don't need or want the money, but because we don't have enough value built yet to make it worth their time or ours. For the same reason you don't read about them in the local rags...If you are small with bigger dreams than bank balance then its not terribly noteworthy is it!
I would love to hear of more companies - s.w/web/other and what they are experiencing in Austin.
How are they sourcing people, garnering Angel investors, who they use for legal, HR other services.
There are a number of interesting folks out there who have helped us with cost effective services and an understanding of our current capacity. They are hard to find but I appreciate each one.
I think that's a pretty interesting question regarding Austin and startups. Are you specifically talking about semiconductor startups, web startups, or startups in general. I don't remember, might have been fast company, or the now defunct business 2.0, but I remember reading that Austin was very much up there in terms of startups on the web 2.0 side - although no numbers were given. On the semiconductor startup I think it is on the smaller side, other than a few startups here and there (blacksand, pulsewave rf, alereon come to mind). You might want to check out ventureloop.com which lists job opportunities in companies backed by venture capital. Or maybe contact Austin Ventures directly to see if they can give you any inside.
Take care,
Maciej
www.chipcrunch.com
I was asking about startups in general, although I am mostly a software guy so I'm most interested personally in things that fall on that side than chip startups.
Thanks for the pointer to ventureloop, I will have to check that out.
Not sure if your aware of them, helio Volt is a start up in Austin(South), They have a new process to make Solar Panels. They currently have 40 employees, they are currently interviewing to hire an additional 30. I Believe they just received a total of about 100 million in financing to build a production facility. Something to look into. http://www.heliovolt.net/
Interesting... looks like they have a number of interesting opportunities for hardware people... zip for software. Ah well.
Do you interact at all with BootstrapAustin? They are typically the breeding ground for entrepreneurs and start-ups.
http://www.bootstrapaustin.org/
Matt
--
I have used the service/group at Bootstrap. Very proactive and helpful.
As to your question re start ups....Austin has a limited field due to some structural inefficiencies. The big VC in town,,,,guess who?;) Holds the purse strings. They can't really afford to do a lot of small investments (Series A style 4-8m). Their fund(s) are too big. The trend towards chips is one that will find its rightful place over time. Enterprise software companies are few and far between for all the obvious reasons – who wants to fight MSFT/IBM/ORACLE and SAP?
Plus there is a perception that as an owner/founder you are not long for the world once the spreadsheet mafia and out of work, ego driven, former VC Entrepreneurs get wind of the round of funding from the Partners at said VC firm.
Smaller angels are viable. Austin has a robust angel community if you can get past a few wankers here and there. The recent property woes are not helping however, many are skittish. But where else in a town this size can you find so many Deca millionaires?
Hang out at coffee shops! LOL that’s where I see a lot of real startups, free loading refills and free wifi while they try and build a business its awesome and I hear the retn is reasonable!
Ciao
good insight, kevin.
though I'm not if that many startups are floating around coffee shops - perhaps I'm incorrect - which ones are you hanging out in?
I guess maybe the fact that I don't drink coffee is one reason I'm not hearing about all the startups!
ha! i don't drink coffee either. but I work out of coffee shops about half the time. I'm at Flight Path now and was at Uno earlier - no signs of startup :)
About the only times I've been in Austin coffee shops in the past few years have been for the GeekAustin events at Epoch, but they haven't done there in a while now.
If you don't drink coffee, startups might not be for you.
To get one startup ready for its first trade show, I once went 3.5 days without sleep (finishing up as I started having mild halucinations). I once worked for two Silicon Valley startups full time at the same time, and was up to about three to four pots of coffee a day.
Startups rely on those that are willing to put forth extraordinary effort when needed. They are almost never run well, so the long hours are pretty constant. If you join one, make sure they pay you by the hour and that your check clears when deposited. (One past employer caused us to race to the bank on payday; the first ones there got paid.)
If you still want to find startups, just follow the money. Check out local VCs like Austin Ventures or Battery Ventures.
I've done startups... I like caffeine, just not from coffee.
Most "large" VC websites offer an email service for job postings. If you go to the National Venture Capital Assc (www.nvca.com) you will get a listing of all VC members.
Wow, you should write a blog on the horror stories of start ups! Kind of puts it into perspective. I worked a start up where one of the co-founders spent $5K on a LED projector and insisted on a $375K/yr salary. Needless to say, he blew all the money in 14 months, and I had helped raise quite a bit ($5 million).
I don't think his startup experiences are that uncommon unfortunately. I've had the same experience of employers where you rushed to the bank on payday to try to cash your check because it wouldn't clear otherwise.
The last startup I worked for definitely blew through money like that... Put it this way... the techies were telling management that they were spending too much money on hardware and software and not enough on marketing and advertising... And they didn't listen. Hello?
Wow, techies saying you need more marketing and advertising? Wow, your bosses most have been REALLY stupid! (wink-wink)
I appreciate marketing (including advertising) as half of what's needed for good product development.
- John
I pity the ones who also separate marketing & sales into two unconnected functions.
Well, I wouldn't say stupid, but they insisted that marketing wasn't going to be necessary because the site was going to "go viral" and we'd have to beat customers away with a stick. Which is why they overspent on hardware and software ramping up for a huge customer base that never materialized because nobody knew about the site. The architecture of the site was designed so that it could be built small (and cheap) at first and scaled just by wheeling in more servers. We had also planned to originally roll out with PostgreSQL and upgrade to Oracle if/when we needed to -- the software was written so that was just a config option away. But they decided they had to have a big commercial database from day one, so we ended up compromising on DB2 EEE, which was a lot less expensive than Oracle, but with similar (load balance clustering) capabilities.
Then their idea to fix the marketing/advertising problem was to turn the company into a MLM. But that is another story.
Yes, and I have perpetual motion machine. Wow, ANY business plan that states "we have to beat them away with sticks" is absolutely doomed to failure!
BTW, why didn't you just use Amazon's server (I cannot remember the name (Jaguar or something like that)?
Well, the problems of the company weren't technical. We built a site that did what it was supposed to, but never got enough customers to be profitable. It is a pretty long story, but they more or less gave up on the original business model which I still believe would have worked (and did more or less for some other sites that went with more conventional plans) and went with the MLM scheme.
Thanks for the pointer to bootstrapaustin.org, seems like an interesting group of people. Has anyone on here actually interacted with them or attend any of their meetings? While on the topic of startups, I thought this post might be of interest:
http://austinstartup.typepad.com/austin_startup/2007/10/austin-startups....
Maciej
www.chipcrunch.com
Maciej, do you run chip crunch?
I do - just as a fun thing on the side. I like startups and would like to see more of them especially in the semiconductor side of things. Web startups get way too much coverage:) Falling a little behind with posts lately since I was at the ISSCC conference all last week in San Francisco.
On the start-up side: Things are not looking that great for Semis startups lately. At one of the evening sessions during the conference venture funding and private equity matters were discussed. Turns out that in 2007 venture funding reached the highest level in six years, but over the last four years funding for semiconductor companies has been flat at best, and seems to have even gone down over the last couple of years. The expert panel did not have any clear answers as to why, other than implying that other areas have a better return on investment and that VCs don't like the unpredictability of the semi industry's cycles.
Maciej
www.chipcrunch.com
I have not interacted with Bootstrap directly, but I am in contact with some folks who do.
Appreciate the post, Maciej. I will keep track of that blog.
While on the topic, I'd also suggest keeping track of another Austinite, Kevin Koym via his Exponential Entrepreneurship blog:
http://www.exponentialentrepreneurship.com/blog/
Matt
--
Interesting links Matt and Maciej... I will have to peruse them in more detail...
Hey, a friend of mine recommended a site for finding venture-backed startups:
http://www.ventureloop.com/
If you search, there are some Austin ones listed.
I dropped this site into our Links section.
Matt
--
There are several sites that focus on companies starting up and what stages they are in. Many offer news letter / email subscriptions that can help you stay informed. The obvious ones are the business journals and some of the not as well known are places like alarm clock.
Roger W. Pilney
Mobile: 512-426-8059
rpilney@dbt-inc.com
www.dbt-inc.com
http://www.linkedin.com/in/rogerwp
Just posting the link to alarm clock:
http://www.thealarmclock.com/
Matt
--
Interesting links. Thanks.
Heliovolt has a breakthrough solar panel technology... thin film, low cost and high efficiency and their solar technology is embedded right in the building materials. I wish they were hurry and get their product out as we want to use it the container houses we're fabbing up.
if you're interested in Austin startups, this maybe the blog to watch: http://www.austinstartup.com/
problem is, there aren't that many. or maybe there are and the press just doesnt talk about 'em.
Well, there certainly aren't enough. As I've said around here before I think that most of the ones that are around are small, cash poor and trying to keep a low profile.
I've heard a lot of great things about Heliovolt, they're making a very high efficiency solar cell that is embedded in the actual structure itself, in the walls, windows, and roof. And it's like 50 times thinner or something. This could be a breakthrough of planetary significance.
If they can crack the long payback time and the environmental impact for making the solar cells they will really have something. Those two issues unfortunately have been what has kept solar energy from taking off I think.
Supposedly they're about to do this. The cost is finally low enough to make it viable and competitive with the utility company. If the reality matches the hype, then we're in for something very big from Heliovolt.
That would be like finding the holy grail for them...
When I said hype, I meant hype.
This is from the front page of http://heliovolt.com
A 21st-century industrial revolution is born.
In the early 1900s, Henry Ford’s innovation of a rapid manufacturing method and an easy-to-use standard product transformed the fledgling automobile industry into an American mass market. A visionary change in process that created not only a business, but an industrial revolution.
A century later, HelioVolt’s visionary change in process is giving birth to a revolution that brings solar electricity to the mass market. Skyscrapers to homes, clad in the thinnest solar skin yet imaginable. Seamlessly solarized building materials and architectural modules -- from roofing to sunshades and skylights. Even solar-integrated buildings from the ground up.
HelioVolt’s FASST™ technology produces high-performance solar thin-film with pioneering time and materials efficiencies. 10 to 100 times faster than current processes. 100 times thinner than traditional silicon. Factor in the flexibility of custom shapes and sizes. Plus easy adaptability to multiple construction materials – glass, steel, metal, composites and some polymers. The result? Another industry revolution is born.
Hope it's true.
If it is, we're saved.
. . . but wait, breaking news:
Despite the excitement for thin-film products, the market is becoming overcrowded with a slew of startups with unproven technologies. In the CIGS segment alone, DayStar, HelioVolt, Iset, Miasole, Nanosolar, Solyndra and others have emerged.
GSE claims to be ahead of its new rivals, many of which have been unable to get their products out the door. Founded in 1996, GSE began to produce its first CIGS-based solar cells in 2004.
While other companies produce CIGS on glass, GSE claims to be the only company with CIGS on flexible materials. GSE uses a "roll-to-roll" and a vacuum deposition manufacturing process, enabling lightweight, flexible cells.
The company's proprietary process claims to produce among the "highest efficiency" solar cells in the thin-film market. In comparison, high-flying First Solar, which uses a cadmium telluride (CdTe) technology, is said to have efficiencies in the 10 percent range. First Solar's average module conversion efficiency is 10.5 percent as of September 2007, according to that company.
from
an EE Times article.
Are they looking for employment with a start-up or generally speaking?
huh?
I am helping out a startup in Austin that is looking for funding. We're doing a Wii-style controller for PCs (plug and play). Link In to me for more information http://linkedin.com/in/zratchet
So, what about Dewey Gaedke and minggl.com?
They're an Austin-based Web 2.1 startup -- don't they get any love?
--
Brad Knowles brad@shub-internet.org
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/bradknowles
darn..web 2.1 Wth is that, even more shiny buttons?
Why hasn't minggl been Arringtoned?
In this case, Web 2.1 is my way of describing a company that is modifying Web 2.0 content from sites like MySpace, Facebook, etc... allowing users to create their own Web 2.0 style content to be displayed on their pages at those sites, but where that content is not under the control of the owners/operators of those sites.
They run a client-side agent which sees the URL you're visiting at one of their minggl-enabled sites, they send that URL to the minggl web servers and get back a set of AJAXy-rich HTML and pointers to other content to integrate onto the page as it will be displayed. Since minggl's servers only provide the HTML to be added/modified and not the actual content, they keep their bandwidth requirements relatively low.
But the key here is that they break down the "Walled Garden" model of sites like MySpace or Facebook, so that they can centralize your contact list from all supported Web 2.0 sites and you can contact everyone from one place. They also allow you very fine control over who sees what, so your wife could see one version of your MySpace page, your girlfriend could see a different version of the same page, your boyfriend could see yet another different version of the same page, and so on.
So, you could put videos and music onto your LinkedIn page, perhaps taken from your MySpace or YouTube pages -- or Twitter, Flickr, Orkut, Bebo, LiveJournal, Yelp, Flixster, Digg, etc....
They also centralize all your social network updates, so you could think of it as creating something like a unified RSS stream of all your social networking sites.
Very cool stuff.
--
Brad Knowles brad@shub-internet.org
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/bradknowles
Well, a 6 months after the question was first asked, I have an answer:
http://www.austinemerging100.com/
Bryan Menell has done a tremendous job with this site. Take a look.
That is indeed a truly nice site...
I think that's exactly the information you and others were looking for. Bryan created a great resource for the tech community.
Its an excellent start towards it... One thing that would be cool would be for them to scrape the "news" and "jobs" links for those sites and create a single listing or maybe at least index them with a search engine so users could search across all the sites at once rather than having to visit hundreds different pages. Scraping the sites would be a lot of work, but indexing them with a search engine should be pretty easy.
One thing I did notice is that some of the companies stretch the definitions given... Myriad for example has been in business over 10 years, and the definition says 5 years... And one of the other companies appears to be owned by Cardinal Health, which is a big company...
I'm sure there are some other legit startups that are missing... I hope that people in the know send in nominations to the email listed on the site.
Quite a good start indeed - very helpful site. It would also be nice if one could sort by industry whatnot. I don't think scraping the sites would actually be that much work, since services like www.openkapow.com make it rather easy to do that and combine the output into a nice rss feed.
Maciej
www.chipcrunch.com
I agree that this "Austin Emerging 100" Web Site is a good start. The company I currently work for [Ten X Technology, Inc] has designed, developed and manufactured electronic products for the consumer, semiconductor industry and medical markets so this list really fits our market. Thanks!.
Well gang happy to share the site. Its my mea culpa to Brian since I was unkind to him once.
Sites not in the list:
NEON Enterprise software
Compliance Spectrum
DQFirewall
Mobitex
obviously lots of others that we should be prompting Brian to add, that are "truer" start ups.
And yes some are literally 10 yrs old, but I guess if you have not cracked 10-20M really your still a startup right?
I think whats more interesting is the budding BOOTSTRAPPER community that is growing in Austin. Bijoy is doing a great job fostering people who do not want to work for the man..i.e. VC/PE/100% CEO owner.
But have chosen a different path to fulfillment financially and ..well I guess emotionally.
Later Hip
I started a software/web service company called qcue. If you are really good at Java or Matlab, find my job posting on this site and apply to work for us!
I am the in-house recruiter for HelioVolt Corporation. We are a start-up located in Austin. We are building a Solar panel manufacturing plant in southeast Austin, just a mile or two from the airport.
We are currently approaching 85 people and will continue to grow as we begin to populate the factory. We will soon need Operations talent to run our factory.
These positions will include:
Materials Operations personnel
Production personnel
Manufacturing personnel
and others...
We will post these open positions as the need arises to our website www.heliovolt.com. Click on "Our Team" and then "Careers". This will take you to the page where you can "fill out a general application" and apply for positions as they open.
Interested parties can get ahead of the curve by getting their resumes into our "Applicant Tracking System". This will be the first place hiring managers will go when they have a new requisition. Getting your resume into our system will put your ahead of those that do not.
All hiring managers have access to our Resume Tracking System and can review resumes submitted.
Lastly, I want to offer some assistance to those applying for positions. Rather than submitting your generic resume for a position you view on our website, please tailor your resume to the position advertised. Make sure that whatever experience you possess, that is called for in the requisition "shows in your resume"!
If I can't read it, I won't know that you have the experience required.
Regards,
Charles Black
HelioVolt Corporation
Human Resources & Staffing
There are more start ups than you think here in Austin, definitely not highly publicized. Opportunities within these companies are also closely held, and the majority of them hire based on their own developed networks. If anyone is interesting in discussing opportunties within start ups here in Austin, feel free to reach out to me.
Laurie Canepa
Division Director
Accountability Resources
5918 West Courtyard Dr., Suite 100
Austin, TX 78730
Main Line : (800) 975-0579
Direct : (512) 258-4986
Cell : (512) 569-5334
Fax : (512) 628-0376
laurie@accountabilityres
Startups are the only thing that can help a teenager get a decent job after finishing high school. One needs experience to get a good job but for experience one needs to get a job. It's all just a big paradox.
---
seo firm
It seems like startups hire mainly experienced people that are known to the insiders. I've never heard of a teenager working for one. The age of teenagers getting a tech job w/o college is over I think. Breaking into the job market is tough even for those with some education under their belts. These days the best bet for getting experience seems to be internships with big companies.
I have also not heard of teenagers getting hired into start-ups. Is there some data to support this? I think typically start-ups need as much relevant experience as possible packed into each person hired.
Yes but internships are not offered to those without any kind of experience. We're in the same loop. What can a teenager do to get the job of his dreams?
Unfortunately I would not recommend a tech career to a young kid today. The best bet for teenagers now is to get a four year degree in a profession that is unlikely to get off-shored or replaced with cheap imported labor. If they can't afford or don't have the grades to get into a four year school they should strongly consider a community college for their first two years. Since there will be few of them in the future tech jobs should be left for those who truly love it and will be willing to put up with limited opportunities and pay that won't keep up -- a Bachelor's of Computer Science degree in the future is going to be like a degree in English Literature or Art History.
Internships are offered to those without any experience, but only when they are full time students at a four year college. Unfortunately there aren't as many internship opportunities as there are kids that need them, so there is usually competition to get what is available. Kids should talk to their professors and guidance counselors and their school's placement office to find out what internships are available, and they should start looking as much as two years early to make sure they are in the running, as there may be waiting lists for the best opportunities. And it is entirely likely that strong preference will be given to students with very high GPAs, and also to students who have already completed certain relevant classes (meaning Juniors and Seniors are in a much better position to get them).
As for other ways to get experience, students should consider part time work or summer jobs as PC Tech assistants, phone tech support, etc., if they can get them. Unfortunately they will be competing with a lot of graduates for those jobs too.
I worked for a startup at 18, but I'm sure I was an exception: I was already working for IBM and had worked at Atari the summer before, after having built a small trade in repairing Atari products since junior high school. I'm sure that I couldn't have landed startup jobs without prior experience. Being a college student certainly helped get me into IBM.
In this town (and especially during our pre-election recession), I doubt that teenagers can find any decent tech work without being in college. So, kids: go to school and try to apprentice at larger companies.
FYI: Years ago, I found that St. Edward's had a good BSCS program for working students. When I lived in Silicon Valley (where the greater cost of living requires students to work even more), I couldn't find a 4-year school willing to take working students.
Laurie
I know a few people who are looking to get started in project management but have no job experience. Some have PMP credentials and others do not.
Can you tell me about possible intern or apprentice programs from either organizations or companies that I can refer them to?
Thanks
kmac
I was under the impression you couldn't get the PMP certification without hands on project management experience? I think you can get the lesser CAPM cert with just classroom training, although I may be mistaken.
One of the best sources for finding out about start ups in Austin is vcfo (virtual CFO). FYI
How so?
Good question... some info can be gleaned by going to www.vcfo.com and seeing their client list as the logos flash on the page. But other than that not much useful info on the site for trying to research early stage startups.
As I had mention above, I found Bryan's AustinStartup.com to be very useful. I met Cayce Colley from VCFO at the last happy hour - she was very nice. I didn't get a chance to discuss VCFO or start-ups though.
ditto that
A $375K salary in a "start-up?" A "start-up" that blows through money isn't in it to succeed with the product/technology, its there to pay someone to be "cool." A "start-up" that blows through money doesn't respect its investors (if this start-up is self-funded, then the start-up is there to be "cool"). Being in a start-up is very serious business. Then again, there are start-ups of all shapes, kinds and varieties (sort of like tomatoes - except the ones that were contaminated with salmonella). On a more serious note, not all start-ups are the right type (or ripe) for the picking by the VC's or angels. Hard to imagine, huh?
I had to change the first line of this post because I didn't want the headline to read, "A start-up that blows..."
Well, I never made anything like that when I worked for startups... I can't complain I suppose -- I was paid well, but not really exorbitantly when you consider the number of hours I put in. Generally I think people who are early into startups put in a lot more work than they'd normally be inclined to do for just another job at an established company. Unfortunately in my case, all that extra work never really panned out... but I guess I'd probably do it again if I had a chance.
Yes, me too!
What-a-Burger pays more than I've made on an hourly basis over the last ten years. Then again the payoffs are alot greater when you have "reached your final destination." Recently, I've finally started making something close to what I should be worth, and thankfully have a baseline for an hourly consulting rate now as well.
When is a "start-up" not a "start-up," even when it hasn't gone to market yet? Now there's the question.
I'd be living in a cardboard box under a bridge if I made that little for that long. I've never been able to get far enough ahead or had a family support structure that I could afford to take a lot of chances.
The "fail-safe" point has long since passed. So whatever risks that I take today are a mere fraction of getting to "here." Getting "there" might actually be worth it in the end. But clearly, do not use me as a model, or at least, only do so at your own risk. My costs have been incalculable. My upside, well, we'll see.
Yes, not everyone can live carpe diem!
A "start-up" that blows - Oops! Got docked ten points for editing my first comment to this thread for not wanting to have a post headline that read A "start-up" that blows... That'll show me to not use the preview feature. Have a Happy Sunday. My start-up requires my attention to day (although we're not really a start-up).
I was NOT offended, but I understand the need for decorum.