Entrepreneurship with John Furrier - Powered by PodTech.net

Cammie Dunaway, Yahoo’s CMO on Web 2.0 Social Media Marketing

John Furrier — Tue, 17 Jul 2007 22:52:44 +0000

CEO of PodTech Network, John Furrier interviews Cammie Dunaway the CMO of Yahoo on the topic of Internet Strategy. Web 2.0 Social Media marketing has arrived. Leading marketers are re-engineering their practices to include more online components to reach customers.

Learn from Cammie as she discusses the current Internet marketing approaches that marketers are taking in this new movement. The two most important themes? 1) focusing hard on the needs of the consumer and 2) integrated within a company’s marketing. The internet has become tightly focused, and small vertical niches are often more effective than large “blanket” efforts.
Cammie will be one of the notable speakers at the Internet Strategy Forum taking place in Portland, Oregon this July 19-20th 2007. Conference attendees will engage with executive speakers from Yahoo!, CNET, FedEx, IBM, WebTrends, PodTech.net, Intel, Adobe, One Economy Corp. and more, who will share their insights and ideas on how to best leverage the Internet and integrate it into overall business strategy.

Tags: John Furrier, Cammie Dunaway, Yahoo, Internet Strategy, Web 2.0, Social Media, CNET, FedEx, IBM, WebTrends, Intel, Adobe, One Economy

Prosper.com’s Chris Larsen on ROI and Risk Assessment for Lenders

John Ince — Thu, 22 Mar 2007 22:05:54 +0000

Chris Larsen is CEO of Prosper.com, talks about how lenders on prosper.com’s peer-to-peer lending network can mitigate the risk they take while generating a return on their loans. This is the third of a four part series.

Tags: Chris Larsen, Prosper.com

Pankaj Jain on Long Tail Retailing via Mobile Phones

Kamla Bhatt — Mon, 19 Mar 2007 23:35:44 +0000

Entrepreneur Pankaj Jain is bootstrapping his mobile start-up, Taxila Lab, and is on the verge of releasing his product soon. Though Taxila Lab is still in stealth mode, Pankaj agreed to talk to us about his company and its new product in broad terms - it has something to do with mobile retail and the long tail theory.

Pankaj pointed out that, for example, iTunes makes millions of titles available, while mobile music stores like Vodafone Live are restricted to only the hits (fewer than a thousand at any given point). It is the mobile phone’s UI limitation that is limiting the high levels of user adoption and full monetization of content that a digital channel ought to have, says Pankaj. And that’s where Taxila comes in.

Pankaj says that his company’s technology helps build digital stores that enables “long tail retailing” on mobile phones.

Prior to founding Taxila, Pankaj worked at Oracle, Siebel and July Systems.

Tags: Pankaj Jain, Taxila Lab, Vodafone Live

Pramati Technologies Founder Jay Pullur, on Dekoh

Kiruba Shankar — Mon, 19 Mar 2007 22:26:51 +0000

Jay Pullur is the founder and CEO of Pramati Technologies. Here, he discusses how he set out on his entrepreneurial path with Pramati, and the company’s latest desktop platform product, Dekoh, recently featured on TechCrunch.

Tags: Jay Pullur, Pramati Technologies, Dekoh, TechCrunch

Prosper.com’s Chris Larsen on Building Lending Communities

John Ince — Mon, 19 Mar 2007 20:00:08 +0000

Chris Larsen is CEO of Prosper.com. Here, he talks about what it takes to create vibrant communities of lenders and borrowers, and the tools his company provides to enable this process. This is the second in a series of conversations with Larsen.

Tags: Chris Larsen, Prosper.com

Prosper.com’s Chris Larsen on Peer-to-Peer Lending

John Ince — Sat, 17 Mar 2007 23:51:54 +0000

Think eBay for money. That’s pretty much what Chris Larsen, CEO of Prosper.com has developed in the peer-to-peer lending network that is building a community of lenders and borrowers while trying to take a slice of the $1 trillion consumer lending market. This is the first in a four part series.

Tags: Chris Larsen, Prosper.com

Pass the Mic: Charles Beeler with Bay Partners’ Eric Chin

John Furrier — Mon, 05 Mar 2007 08:01:07 +0000

Eric Chin, partner at Bay Partners, takes time out from DEMO networking to talk with Charles Beeler. Chin and Bay Partners may not have had any investments on display this time, but at the Fall conference, they were the talk of the show, with Wallop, which has since made inroads in Hollywood….

Tags: Eric Chin, Charles Beeler, Wallop

Furrier At DEMO: Charles Beeler, of El Dorado Ventures

John Furrier — Mon, 05 Mar 2007 06:36:32 +0000

Before he handed off the microphone to Charles Beeler, PodTech Founder and CEO John Furrier spoke with Beeler about life at El Dorado Ventures, an early-stage venture capital firm, located in the heart of Silicon Valley VC territory, on famous Sand Hill Road.

Tags: Charles Beeler, John Furrier

Pass the Mic: Granite Global Ventures’ Hany Nada

John Furrier — Mon, 05 Mar 2007 06:20:28 +0000

Hany Nada, from Granite Global Ventures, talks about the expansion-stage firm’s interests at DEMO 07, and their track record in China.

Tags: Hany Nada, Granite Global Ventures

Pass the Mic: Charles Beeler with Paul Holland at DEMO 07

John Furrier — Sat, 24 Feb 2007 00:28:29 +0000

El Dorado Ventures General Partner Charles Beeler continues his man-on-the-street interviews at DEMO 07. Paul Holland was impressed with a few of the companies he saw at the conference, as well as with the spinach salad at a VC dinner. It wasn’t just the spinach, actually. It was the whole salad.

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Tags: El Dorado Ventures, Charles Beeler, DEMO 07, Paul Holland

Pass the Mic: Charles Beeler with Steve Hall at DEMO 07

John Furrier — Thu, 22 Feb 2007 23:57:30 +0000

Venture capital investor Charles Beeler speaks with fellow-VC Steve Hall (his DEMO observations can be found here), from Vulcan Capital, at DEMO 2007 in January. Another positive mention for Zink, and agreement that lots of small steps are being taken in the direction of improving search technology. Hall also gets in a plug for one of his investments….

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Tags: Charles Beeler, Zink

William Schnoor’s Advice for Entrepreneurs

John Ince — Thu, 22 Feb 2007 21:21:10 +0000

Entrepreneurs often face a mine field of potential legal problems during the startup phase. Bill Schnoor is a general partner with law firm Goodwin Proctor’s technology companies group. Here, he offers advice for entrepreneurs in structuring financial agreements with early investors to help avoid potential problems down the road.

Tags: Entrepreneurs, startup, Bill Schnoor, Goodwin Proctor

ContentWatch President and CEO Jack Sunderlage

editor — Wed, 14 Feb 2007 22:35:10 +0000

vSpring’s Dennis Wood speaks with ContentWatch President and CEO Jack Sunderlage, about his participation in some of Utah’s most important economic development initiatives, including the Utah Technology Council, the Utah Partnership for Education, The World Trade Center Utah, and Utah Science Technology and Research project. Sunderlage is a member of vSpring’s v100 - a peer-nominated group of the top 100 venture entrepreneurs in the Rocky Mountain region.

Mr. Sunderlage currently serves as president and chief executive officer of ContentWatch Inc., a provider of Internet management software and services. He has enjoyed a long and successful career in the information technology industry, having held key sales and marketing positions with Burroughs, UNISYS, Digital Equipment, Compaq Computer, and Hewlett-Packard. His last assignment was vice president of Global Accounts, West Region for Compaq, a part of HP. Jack took an early retirement from HP in July 2002.

Jack is the past chairman of the board of trustees for the Utah Information Technology Association, where he continues to be a trustee with the newly-formed Utah Technology Council. He currently serves as chairman of the board for the World Trade Center Utah. In 2006, he was appointed to the Utah Science Technology and Research Governing Board for the State of Utah.

Other community affiliations include the Commercialization Advisory Board for the University of Utah, the MBA Advisory Board for the Gore School of Business at Westminster College, the National Advisory Council for the Marriott School at Brigham Young University, the Athletic Leadership Council for BYU, the National Presidential Advisory Board at Utah Valley State College, and the Board of Directors for the Rotary Club of Salt Lake.

This podcast is brought to you by Rocky Mountain Voices.

Tags: vSpring, Dennis Wood, ContentWatch, Jack Sunderlage, Utah Technology Council, entrepreneurs, Rocky Mountain Voices

Professor Maheshwari on Campus Entrepreneurship

Kiruba Shankar — Wed, 14 Feb 2007 20:40:20 +0000

Professor Maheshwari is the vice chancellor of BITS Pilani, one of the most prestigious educational instituitions in India. He has held various top-level positions at the instituition over the past 35 years. He has published four books and over 80 research papers in the ares of semiconductor electronics and university-industry linkages.

Professor Maheshwari talks about the entrepreneurship programs and incubation center that prevails at BITS Pilani. He also talks about the vision of creating a Silicon Valley around educational institutes in India the same way Stanford University helped develop the valley.

Tags: Professor Maheshwari, BITS Pilani, entrepreneurship

“Too Many VCs!” Jean-Louis Gassée, at DEMO 07

John Furrier — Tue, 13 Feb 2007 00:30:26 +0000

PodTech CEO and Founder John Furrier spotted a real-life legend milling around at DEMO 07. Jean-Louis Gassée has played important roles at Hewlett-Packard and Apple Computer, he’s a blogger (you can test your French), and he confesses here that this is his first podcast, at least this year. Asked about the entrepreneurial climate in Europe, he says things are exciting there, but adds that he’s always stealing European talent for Greater Silicon Valley.

Photo: Rob Lee via Flickr/Creative Commons

Tags: Jean-Louis Gassée, Silicon Valley

DEMO Mixer: Who Says Tech Folks Don’t Know How to Unwind?

John Furrier — Mon, 12 Feb 2007 14:00:39 +0000

How does smalltalk sound at DEMO? PodTech Founder and CEO John Furrier was wearing his media hat and his technology hat when he spoke with Alcatel-Lucent’s Dor Skuler and others at the DEMO Day 1 mixer. Among the issues they discuss: controling security in the workplace while allowing users the freedom that productivity requires.

Photo: Rob Lee via Flickr/Creative Commons

Tags: PodTech, John Furrier, Alcatel-Lucent, Dor Skuler, DEMO

Motionbox CEO Chris O’Brien on Internet Video Sharing

John Ince — Mon, 12 Feb 2007 12:50:35 +0000

How do you get to be the CEO of a start-up that plans to take on some of the hottest properties in online video sharing? Motionbox CEO Chris O’Brien discusses the competitive landscape he’s gotten to know, as well as a more personal look at his career path leading up to Motionbox.

Tags: Motionbox, Chris O’Brien

Brave New Web: The Furrier Bootleg

John Furrier — Sat, 10 Feb 2007 00:34:33 +0000

PodTech Founder and CEO John Furrier gave the closing keynote at Brave New Web this week in Boston. Allen Stern was there, and got this bootleg of the talk.

Photo: Doc Searls via Flickr/Creative Commons

Tags: PodTech, John Furrier

Motionbox CEO on Profitability for Web 2.0 Companies

John Ince — Fri, 09 Feb 2007 19:06:50 +0000

Motionbox is a New York-based personal video sharing startup. CEO Chris O’Brien talks about the company’s business model, and how it’s planning to scale up to compete with the dominant forces in the online video space. His experience with the startup shows him that the route to profitability can be much shorter for companies that use tested revenue models.

This is the second in a series. Part one.

Tags: Motionbox, Chris O’Brien, profitability

DEMO 07: Blerts - The Next Step in RSS?

John Furrier — Fri, 09 Feb 2007 01:00:58 +0000

One of the companies with something big to announce at DEMO 07 was ThePort, which premiered Blerts. Here, PodTech Founder John Furrier talks with ThePort Network CEO and Chairman Robert Cramer about the future of social media.

Photo: Rob Lee via Flickr/Creative Commons

Tags: ThePort, Blerts, Robert Cramer

DEMO 07: VCs in a Cab

John Furrier — Thu, 08 Feb 2007 13:00:15 +0000

What do a bunch of elite venture capital folks do after a long day at DEMO 07 in Palm Desert, Calif.? They pile into a cab to have a chat about the day’s highlights. Here, PodTech Founder and CEO John Furrier goes over the shows’ greatest hits with Craig Syverson, Christine Herron, David Hornik and Vivek Mehra, all from the inside of a taxi. (One highlight of the everyone agreed on, by the way: a technology called ZINK — it stands for “zero ink.” You can see the demo here.)

Photo: Doc Searls via Flickr/Creative Commons

Tags: John Furrier, Craig Syverson, Christine Herron, David Hornik, Vivek Mehra, ZINK

Steve Grizzell, Utah Valley Entrepreneurial Forum Chairman

editor — Wed, 07 Feb 2007 20:00:58 +0000

Utah venture capital and angel investment success is not limited to the Salt Lake Valley. Focusing on matching up investors and early-stage entrepreneurs, Utah Valley Entrepreneurial Forum chairman Steve Grizzell discusses UVEF’s origins and successes. A 20-year veteran in entrepreneurship, finance, innovation and economic development, Grizzell observes while Utah entrepreneurs and investors face some stereotyping challenges, they are becoming increasingly sophisticated–yet entrepreneurial ‘overhyping,’ corporate inbreeding and soft market research remain problematic.

With significant projected growth in Utah’s future, Grizzell sees the Wasatch Front as rife with opportunities for entrepreneurs and investors.

A nonprofit organization founded in 1989, is a support group working together to share lessons learned and to learn the war stories of those who’ve succeeded. UVEF encourages the creation and sustained growth of entrepreneurial ventures through providing networking opportunities, promoting recognition of business accomplishments and contributions, sharing business experiences, and encouraging free enterprise.

This podcast is brought to you by Rocky Mountain Voices.

Tags: venture capital, angel investment, entrepreneurs, Steve Grizzell, Rocky Mountain Voices

Mediconnect Global CEO Amy Rees Lewis on Entrepreneurship

editor — Wed, 07 Feb 2007 02:27:38 +0000

Mediconnect Global CEO, Amy Rees Lewis, speaks with Dennis Wood about how her own success as an entrepreneur, the passion to sell that successful entrepreneurs must have, and what to expect from venture financing. Lewis is a member of vSpring’s v-100 - a peer-nominated group of the top 100 venture entrepreneurs in the Rocky Mountain region.

In 1996, Lewis started her first company, PerfectPractice.MD, with only $23,000 in seed capital, and went on to build the nation’s first 100-percent Web-based medical practice management system for physician offices. She grew the company from a single employee to over 85 employees, eventually selling it in 2002. She is currently the CEO of Mediconnect, an online medical records retrieval company that utilizes Web technologies to facilitate the retrieval of patients’ medical records for the legal and the insurance industries. Lewis is also an owner and director of Globerian, a company located in Delhi, India, providing offshore business process outsourcing to US based businesses.

Amy has received numerous awards including the “Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award” from the Small Business Administration, the “Top Woman on the Move Award” from Utah Business Magazine, the “Free Enterprise Award” from Larry H. Miller, and the “UITA Million Dollar Award.”

Amy has previously served on the board of the Young Entrepreneurs Organization - Utah Chapter, as president for the HIMSS-Utah Chapter, as chairperson for the TIPAA National Biodefense Committee, and has been featured in such publications as the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Fast Company, Business Week, and many other national publications for her numerous accomplishments.

This podcast is brought to you by Rocky Mountain Voices.

Tags: Dennis Wood, vSpring, venture entrepreneurs, Rocky Mountain Voices

PodVentureZone: Interview with Drew Clark, Part 2

John Ince — Sat, 03 Feb 2007 00:52:33 +0000

Drew Clark is co-founder of the IBM Venture Capital Group. In this conversation, he discusses how the climate for starting companies has changed in recent years, with such developments as open source enabling entrepreneurs to build Web-based applications on a shoestring budget.

Tags: Drew Clark, IBM Venture Capital Group

PodVentureZone: Interview with Drew Clark, Part 1

John Ince — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 20:55:27 +0000

Drew Clark, co-founder of the IBM Venture Capital Group describes the initial thinking behind the formation of IBM’s venture capital arm and how it differs in its role from traditional VC firms.

Tags: Drew Clark, IBM Venture Capital Group