The NetSuds (TM) Report
The October 3, 2000 Issue:
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Definition: "com and .com" = Telecom, Datacom, IT or Internet
In this Issue:
1.0
Heard on the Net
2.0 Jobs in the "com and .com"
Market
3.0 Lancaster University Research
Project
4.0 MediaFest 2000 for Creative
Service Professionals, Oct. 17-20
5.0 National Entrepreneur
Conference Report
6.0 NetSuds Evening Calendar
7.0 pulver.com 2000 Calendar
8.0 What's Wrong with
Entrepreneurism in Minnesota
9.0 Start-ups vs. Pull-outs
1.0 Heard on the Net
1.1 People on the Move:
Please email: people@netsuds.com to report a change in your job
status if you are
moving from or to a company in the "com or .com" space.
NetSudser Janice Aune, formerly a
US West executive is the
new CEO at Onvoy.
This was announced early in September.
NetSudser George Petrov, formerly
of eBedroom.com, is now
consulting for
Division21, a start-up that delivers real
space management
capabilities to chain stores. George is
looking for other
opportunities as well. Contact George
at 612.396.6285.
NetSudser Mark Casey has taken a
senior position at MilePoint.com.
Mark successfully
networked by doing an executive internship
at NetSuds this summer
and found this great opportunity after
seeing many, many
opportunities while interning at NetSuds.
NetSudser Marina Petersen is
looking for an opportunity as a
programmer/analyst.
Contact Marina at MarinaPetersen@aol.com.
Lynn Blake,
Gartner Institute CFO, has recently completed the
company's business
transition back to investors and may be
available for new
senior financial management opportunities.
Lynn can be reached at
952-563-2035 or lynn.blake@gartner.com.
If you are a tech
worker or executive looking for your next
"big thing"
consider interning at the NetSuds office.
NetSuds sees lots of great opportunities every day
in the
start-up AND public
company markets.
1.2 Companies on the Move:
Please email: start-ups@netsuds.com to report (1) the
formation of a new
start-up, (2) momentum change at an
existing start-up, (3)
addition of key hires, or (4) a funding
event at a start-up.
Please give details on the above
including any
information you do not want made public. We
are very discrete.
Promotrend
is a new Waconia, MN start-up. Promotrend provides
traditional and e-promotional
solutions to procure and
distribute corporate
and brand identity products through its
proprietary software.
Contact President Jeff Jones at
952.442.6319 or jeff@promotrend.com.
iXmatch.com
appears to have secured some more strategic
funding. This
bodes well for the Minneapolis start-up.
I'm sure details will
follow.
1.3 Special IT Event in Nagasaki, Japan:
InterSec
Communications, Inc. is working with the Japanese
government and City of
Nagasaki (sister city to St. Paul)
to bring companies to
Japan for a High Tech Exhibition. The
Japanese are very
interested in importing US technology and
doing partnerships
with US technology firms. This is a
great opportunity to
build distributorships in Japan. To
prove the point, the
government is funding trips up to
$2000 cash for each
company. For more information, contact
Mike Noer, VP,
Marketing, InterSec Communications, Inc.,
357 E. Kellogg Blvd.,
St. Paul, MN 55101, (651) 767-3313
or mjn@intersec.com or
http://www.pref.nagasaki.jp/index_e.html
or http://www.netsuds.com/report/2000/japan.doc.
2.0 Jobs in the "com and .com" Market
Please email: jobs@netsuds.com to report job openings in the
"com and .com"
Market. In the body of the message, give the
name of the company
and a URL link to the job postings.
Minnenet.com - http://www.minnenet.com/website.nsf
CBS MarketWatch.com - http://www.cbsmarketwatch.com/jobs/
Chaincast Networks - http://www.chaincast.com/
BlueWater - http://www.bluewater.net/careers.html
NexTel - http://www.nexteljobs.com/
Marquette Bank - http://jobs.marquette.com/
4th Level, Inc. Trains Network Doctors
Comprehensive hands-on training PERIOD. Get
your hands-on CCNA today!
* At least one
router for each student !
* Students use
CCNA exam principles to build the networks they design.
* The
instructor simulates network outages; students troubleshoot and
fix them.
Afternoons
or evenings --- our next class starts Oct. 9th.
NetSuds-ers: get $50 off when you mention this
ad!
Call Hal Marten at 612-475-6786 or hal@4thlevel.net.
Bluewater aggregates best-of-breed IT people,
services and products to
provide web systems
integration; data center production services; and
data center
infrastructure consulting. Pre-IPO Bluewater is looking
for the best IT people
in the area for exciting new projects. Please
visit Bluewater
Information Convergence at www.bluewater.net or
robbie.cordo@bluewater.net
Visit Rauenhorst Recruiting at http://www.rauenhorst.com/
"Helping to take
you where you want to go."
Currently searching
for a CEO, CFO and CTO at 3 "com and .com"s.
3.0 Lancaster University Research Project
Download the Lancaster
U. Research Project Questionnaire at
http://www.netsuds.com/report/2000/research.doc.
Lancaster University
in England has asked NetSuds to help it
with a research
project dealing with entrepreneurism. Feel
free to complete the
short questionnaire and email it back
to student Matthew
Rundle at m_rundle@hotmail.com.
4.0 MediaFest 2000 for Creative Service Professionals
Media Maxx
Communications is taking Mediafest attendees into the
new Millennium with
training sessions on digital television,
video production,
graphic design, multimedia, animation,
e-commerce, Web based
streaming, DVD authoring, fiber based
networks and distance
learning. Mediafest has had 3
consecutive years of
growth around the Midwest and will celebrate
the convergence of
technology for the 7th time at The Grand Casino
on Lake Mille Lacs,
October 17-20, 2000.
http://www.creativefrontiers.net/mediafest/mediafest.htm
They offer nationally
based business and industry leaders & cutting-
edge training sessions
with manufacturer representatives from the
largest software and
hardware companies in the World. In addition,
they encourage your
organization to use their site for industry Web
links and promote your
own programs or products in their event
exhibition space.
Prize drawings. First class entertainment.
Outdoor activities.
Informal networking.
5.0 National Entrepreneur Conference Report
Where: Santa Clara
Westin Hotel
When:
September 20-22, 2000
Who:
52 start-up companies
in the "com and .com" space.
50+ Venture capitalists and angel
investors.
Sponsors: Oppenheimer
Wolff & Donnelly LLP, B2BXchange.Net
Also: KPMG, Heller
Venture Finance, Redwood Partners
9/20: The Conference
started with NetSuds' first evening gathering in
Silicon Valley on September 20. 350 people attended and the
excitement
was
building for the start of the Conference.
9/21:
Bob Switz gave a great keynote at breakfast and
the elevator
pitches topped off the breakfast. As many of the VCs were
arriving
late for breakfast, anticipation was on for the 12-minute
presentations
starting at 9 am. The 2 break-out rooms started with 45-60
minutes of
VC
panels. The presentations went off mostly on schedule and
you could
tell when the panelists found an exciting company to focus on.
Poker
faces were "on" because no one wants to lose or share a
deal before
digging deeper. Tim Koogle of Yahoo! gave
a great lunch keynote and
was
mobbed after he left the podium to catch a limo to the airport.
The
afternoon sessions went according to plan. The evening
reception
was
a bit much for a long day which started at 6:30 am so attendance
was
about 200.
9/22:
Friday's break-out sessions saw a few surprises as 2 additional
companies were added - Decidia and Tribal Fusion. Michael
Tanner of
The
Chasm Group topped off the Conference with a lunch
keynote speech.
Presentations
available on the NetSuds web site are:
Michael
Tanner - http://www.netsuds.com/report/2000/tanner.pdf
Michael
Duran - http://www.netsuds.com/report/2000/patricof.pdf
6.0 NetSuds Evening Calendar
Save November 28, 2000
for the next quarterly NetSuds event.
Actually, you might
want to reserve the whole day - more later.
NetSuds/IBM e-Soirre: http://www.netsuds.com/netsuds/ibm.htm.
Monday, October 23, 6-9
pm at Bravo in downtown Minneapolis.
7.0 pulver.com 2000 Calendar
In July 2000, NetSuds.com and pulver.com Entrepreneur Conferences
agreed to produce entrepreneur conferences together starting with
the
National Entrepreneur Conference. pulver.com has been
producing high-energy, cutting-edge technology conferences and
workshops worldwide for approximately 5 years. Jeff
Pulver is
considered the leading expert and consultant on voice on the 'net
technologies in the world. Here is a calendar of events for
pulver.com. See http://www.pulver.com/ for more information.
October 3-5
- The Broadband Home Conference, Burlingame, CA
October 24-25
- The pulver.com Wireless Internet Summit, New York
November
13-15 - VON Asia 2000, Hong Kong, China
November
28-30 - Fall 2000 Presence and Instant Messaging, San Jose
December 5-6
- VON Futures and Directions, Tel-Aviv, Israel
8.0 What's Wrong with Entrepreneurism in Minnesota
On September 8, state senators Kelley and Cohen
hosted a senate
hearing on high-tech competitiveness in Minnesota. I was
invited
to
attend. Senator Kelley was in attendance at the NetSuds
Entrepreneurs Breakfast earlier that day and saw, first-hand,
what some entrepreneurs are doing in Minnesota. The event
at the
state Capitol was attended by about 30 people including Rick
Brimacomb, Mike O'Connor, Mac Lewis, Harlan Jacobs, Dean Kidwell,
Rob
Clark and Gary Anderson.
Most agreed that the State should not create a venture
capital
fund. It seemed there was a great deal of controversy over
whether
the
University of Minnesota should get more funding to help solve
the
problem of high-tech competitiveness. Arguments ranged from
"why dump more money in that rat hole of mismanagement"
to "let's
create a centralized center for facilitating entrepreneurism".
Most agreed that DTED (Department of Trade and
Economic Development)
is
not doing much of anything in this space. Tax policy in the
form
of
investment tax credits to a reduction in the State capital gains
tax
were discussed. I think the capital gains tax cut
needs a serious
look as a cut will stimulate more investment and encourage people
to
stay in Minnesota to reap the benefits of their ventures.
My
comments were brief. I think 3 things should be
pursued.
1. Rather than give more money to the U, make it
more like Stanford.
Encourage and reward faculty involvement in start-ups ... like
Stanford does. The joke among Stanford
tech faculty is that being
part of a start-up is not a requirement towards obtaining tenure
but
it
is a requirement towards buying a house in Silicon Valley.
Get
the
professors out in the business community more. I see more
good
things coming out of St. Thomas and St.
Olaf than I do coming out of
the
University of Minnesota. Save your flames. 2.
DTED needs to
be overhauled.
Competition from other States sponsoring
entrepreneurial activites typically comes from that State's DTED.
Minnesota's DTED is a non-player. 3.
Be agressive in marketing
Minnesota to ex-Minnesotans who have left for
opportunites in places
like Silicon Valley, Boston, Dallas and other areas more known
for
high-tech. Anyway, if you print this email out you can line
your
birdcage with my comments.
9.0 Start-ups vs. Pull-outs
A start-up is a company that is started
by some people who leave
jobs to create something exciting. A pull-out is
a company that
is
started by some people who want other people to leave jobs to
create something exciting.
Why wait for good people to leave jobs they
should have left
months, if not years ago? Many people are stuck in jobs
that are
not
utilizing their full potential. This fact has been proven
over and over again in Silicon Valley. It is my contention
that
we
have great talent here in Minnesota but that talent has not
seen the light of business creation.
Short of starting a pull-out myself in
Minnesota (it is tempting),
let
me suggest some ideas for companies which could be created in
Minnesota by some talented people who have more time than me.
1. The broadband DLC is
still a myth as is an easy-to-provision
DLC
(Digital Loop Carrier). Tired of not getting xDSL even
though
you
live in an influential suburb or even downtown? Tired of
dealing
with incompetent telephone company salespeople or technicians who
can't get voicemail to work, much less help you configure your
DSL?
There exists a need for an easily-provisioned, multi-service
broadband
network element which would reside either between a CO and your
home
or
at the CO which would provide high-speed Internet, voice and
other data services and which a monkey could program. Build
that.
Get
rich.
2. Wireless protocol software.
The world is going wireless but all
those wireless devices have to talk to the big "I"
Internet and the
PSTN. Given all those St. Thomas software
engineering graduates (800
or
so in their graduate software program compared to about 150 at
the
"U") I would think an enterprising group of mangement
types could
easily find some money, hire some good software talent and start
writing IETF-blessed software which could be licensed to every
networking company on the planet.
3. Optical. ADC
will probably have sales of $2B (B not M) in broadband
connectiviy this fiscal year. Optical Solutions will
probably be the
biggest IPO in Minnesota history sometime next year. There
are a few
other smaller optical plays in town. Let's get some
critical mass and
make the Twin Cities the optical center of entrepreneurism.
We don't
have to make optical routers a la Cisco but you
would be surprised to
know that Cisco has a growing router development presence here in
the
Twin Cities.
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Please send your comments and feedback regarding this issue of
the NetSuds
Report to matt@netsuds.com.
Matt Noah
952.934.5424
fax: 425.795.2019
matt@netsuds.com
P.O. Box 277
Chanhassen, Minnesota 55317
(c) 2000 NetSuds.com, Inc. All Rights Reserved