by Brian Solis

Microsoft Startup Zone, in partnership with Stephanie Agresta and yours truly of The TechSet, hosted a special event for tech innovators in Silicon Valley and San Francisco to celebrate the launch of BizSpark, a new program designed specifically for those who contribute to a dynamic ecosystem that helps startups flourish.

While glamorous and absolutely one of the best stops on our four city tour, it was also bitter sweet. San Francisco was the last Ignition event of the current series that spotlighted and introduced us to amazing entrepreneurs, founders, leaders, and influencers in Austin, New York and Los Angeles.

Ignition-San Francisco was hosted 52 floors above San Francisco at The Carnelian Room. The view and the company was nothing less than incredible.

I’ll let the pictures tell the rest of the story…

Transamerica Building

Stowe Boyd and Jeremiah Owyang

Krystal Ariel

Karl Long

Shobeir Shobeiri

Nick Starr

Carl Heiney and Scott Beale of Laughing Squid

Dan’l Lewin

Kedric Van De Carr

Scott Stanfield

Shaherose Charania

Anand Ayer

Daniel Riveong

Jackie Danicki

Cathy Brooks

Anthony Ha of VentureBeat

Oren Michels of Mashery

Chris Heuer

Karen Hartline

Tara Hunt

Arad Rostampour, Brian Solis, Rebecca Woodcock

Stephanie Agresta and Jacob Mullins

Christopher Peri

Adam Jackson and Marissa Louie

Kristin Kueter and Cathy Brooks

Arad Rostampour, Anand Iyer, Jacob Mullins

Dale Larson & Adam Jackson

Dave Mathews of Boxee

For more pictures from Ignition-San Francisco, visit my album on flickr.

If you’ve missed our previous events, you can relive the experiences below:

New York

Austin

Los Angeles

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by Brian Solis

Last week, the Microsoft BizSpark team, in partnership with The TechSet (Stephanie Agresta and yours truly), celebrated Southern California startups and the spirit of innovation at Ingnition-LA. Hosted at the beautiful Beso, owned by Eva Longoria, in Hollywood, 300 entrpreneurs converged to demo, network, and forge alliances that will carry them forward for years to come.

Thank you to everyone who helped make this such a tremendously successful event!

San Francisco, you’re next! See you on 12/16 at the beautiful Carnelian Room, 52 floor above the city!

RSVP for the San Francisco event here.

I’ll let the pictures tell the rest of the story…

Shira Lazar and Geri Hirsch

Anand Iyer of BizSpark

Tyler Crowley of Mahalo

Efren Toscano and Linda Sherman

Kedric Van De Carr, Arad Rostampour, Jacob Mullins, Anand Iyer

Streamy.com

Girl Gamer

Dan Portnoy

Shira Lazar keeps people in line

Rock Band

Robert Yang, Lolita Carrico, Jim Lin, Matt Singley

Stephanie Agresta and Nina Bargiel

Kedric Van De Karr, Misty LaChance, Angela Costa Roque Baptista

Raj Chauhan of Rubicon Project

Hayden Black and Michael Pilla

Marc Russell Hustvedt, Jessica (need last name), Taryn O’Neill, Michael Davies

Jessica Wilzig Gottlieb and Erin Kotecki Vest (QueenofSpain)

Dragana Ognenovska & Wm. Marc Salsberry

Todd Sawacki

Frank Sinton of Meefeedia

Stephanie Agresta

Kurt Daradics and Heather Meeker

Linda Sherman and Amanda Coolong

Blackberry Storm

Jason Nazar of Docstoc and Shira Lazar

Jonathan Dingman

For more pictures from Ignition-Los Angeles, visit my album on flickr. Within the set, you’ll also be treated to a few pictures from the after party at Bao, Hollywood, where we also celebrated @queenofspain’s birthday!

Here are a couple of pics to get your started…

If you’ve missed our previous events, you can relive the experiences below:

New York

Austin

Connect with me on:
Twitter, FriendFeed, LinkedIn, Tumblr, Pownce, Plaxo, Plurk, Identi.ca, BackType, Jaiku or Facebook

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by Brian Solis

The spirit of entrepreneurialism is what drives all of us to innovate and excel. Economics aside, there is no better time than now to pursue that next big idea. This is your time to shine and we want to celebrate you, your vision and help you succeed.

Microsoft Startup Zone and The TechSet, present “Ignition” an event for entrepreneurs, investors and those who contribute to a dynamic ecosystem for helping startups flourish.

Join Stephanie Agresta, Brian Solis, Microsoft staff and partners at One Little West NYC from 8-10pm. Free hors d’oeuvres, drinks, and valuable networking will be served. Plus, you will have the opportunity to meet some of the most influential technologists around. All attendees can participate in a “twitter raffle” to win an XBox 360 Elite.

Microsoft Startup Zone will be making an important announcement prior to the event at the New York Tech Meetup, so for now, we need to keep things stealth while we plan and organize during private beta.

Mark your calendar and stay tuned for more news.

Event Details:

Time: 8-10pm
Location: 1 Little W. 12th St., New York, NY 10014

Please make sure to RSVP on Eventbrite.

If you don’t live in NY, hopefully we’ll see you in Austin, LA, or Silicon Valley:

November 20, 2008 – Austin

December 2, 2008 – Los Angeles

December 4, 2008 – Silicon Valley

Connect with me on:
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Subscribe to the bub.blicio.us RSS Feed.

by Larry Chiang

Founders have bad credit and get it one of two ways. Not making enough money (obviously). And not so obvious, making too much money. Why?!: You won’t have car loans because you’re liquid!

Here are 10 tips for founders and their FICO score…

1. Money in > Money Out.

If this currently isn’t true, then when will it be true. Post it on a treasure wall of goals.

Treasure management.

So lets say Money in > Money Out, there still will be short falls where credit covers expenses. This is where stress occurs.

-2- Twice a month for 10 minutes do something to measure your credit quality.

I recommend a sweep of every account on your credit report. I also recommend logging into every credit card account 2x/month. If you wanna credit FICO buddie to remind you two days a month, text message me your first and last name.

The cost. I’m just trying to help you, so I guess it’s just free.

-3- Help someone with their credit.

No you can NOT give them my cell phone but you can point them towards getting a free credit report in the mail. What?! You don’t have yours?! Hypocrite! You want to use the magic of the Internet?! Long story short, you can’t, can’t can not.

Not.

If you’d like to argue this I suggest you save pain and just mail it
in.

Remember, you live in a country that can land a person on the moon with analog technology, but you can’t properly download a PDF from the unholy trinity of trans union, equifax or experian.

-4- Sign it Once.

Integrate the date into signatures. Why, you should see how easy it is to photoshop one signature onto a guarantee doc with your house as collateral?! Easy, weasie, japan-easie.

-5- Learn to love paper and mailing stuff.

Disputes must be done via snail mail. Emailing does you zero good. Calling does you less good. The fcra protects peoples rights via snail mail disputes only.

Oh and cc creditCard.org electronically all documents you mail the unholy trinity of trans union, equifax or experian.

-6- Be an Under Consumer

There is no such thing as fake-it-til-you-make-it anymore. What was a quasi possible strategy in the 80s definitely won’t work now. Plus stress from Money Out > Money in makes you retarded.

-7- Get a WIKI page to track you credit.

It looks like this and when you do your page, I’ll be your credit coach. I will be free. Why?! Cuz you won’t do shitake with this offer cuz you’re a looo-ser and you’re waiting for your overnight success so you’ll never worry about money.

News flash. 1.) GooG luck, and 2) even when you’re rich you’re still dealing with money problems. After a date I need to know exactly where every one of my sperm is cuz I don’t want a paternity suit costing me another 40k/year on a reach-around.

-8- Weekly Liquidity Event.

Pull some money off the table EVERY week.

-9- 70-20-10 Your Money and Your Time.

70% for essentials

20% for investment

10% you treat as house money. House money is not your money/time so go blow it, save it or give it.

-10- goals focused on twice per day buddie buddy. I would choose 11-11-11 which is all ones on your credit report. 1′s are on-time payment and 9s are charge-off. Good luck ducking 9s

Larry Chiang is CEO of Duck9. He is working on a book project “What They Don’t Teach You At Stanford Business School.”

Larry’s earlier posts in this series include:

9 Things Stanford B-School Won’t Teach You;

9 VCs You’re Gonna Want to Avoid;

and Hack Your Startup Credit Rating.

by Brian Solis

Earlier this month, TechCrunch debuted Elevator Pitches, a new service that provides a platform for company founders to visually tell their story. Until now, the process of getting videos online was a very manual process.

Elevator Pitches is a community video project that allows entrepreneurs to pitch their startups to the general public. Visitors then have a chance to comment and vote on their favorite or least favorite pitches.

Today, TechCrunch announced a much simpler, and probably a much more benefitial process for submitting videos.

Now, entrepreneurs can upload their video pitch to YouTube, tag it “tcpitch,” and then submit the video URL here. It will enter a moderation queue and TechCrunch will approve qualified content, much quicker than before. Approved videos will also be automatically inserted into each submitting company’s CrunchBase.

On a side note, the bub.blicio.us crew shot many of the videos that are online today and we’re already on the calendar to shoot more at the next big event!

Here’s one that we shot in Los Angeles:

Stowe Boyd and I also recently introduced the notion of the Escalator Pitch. The idea of the escalator pitch is game changing and powered by the micro exchanges that take across micromedia every minute of every day. It inspires us to embrace brevity and relevance in the real world to help people “get” what we do and why they should care.

Here are some quick tips for startups on developing the startup video:

Take it seriously, you are not above improvement.

Assume you have one shot at getting someone excited about what you’re doing, because, technically, you do.

Be creative.

Make sure to clearly express who this is different than anything else out there and how it benefits the people who’ll use it.

Get friendly feedback.

Rehearse your pitch.

Tighten it.

Evolve it based on reactions.

Share your story in 60 seconds or less, each and every time.

Shape it to include the key points specific to the group to whom you’re speaking.

If you can nail it on an escalator, the elevator pitch will seem like a luxury.

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