David Cummings on Startups

Blog

  • The Future has Arrived with the Tesla Model S

    Three days ago my new Tesla Model S electric car arrived. After reading so many articles and reviews online I knew I wanted to try one out but I didn’t want to wait six months before I could get one (each car has to be custom ordered and there’s a long waiting list). So, naturally, eBay is the next logical place to look and there was exactly what I wanted — a black one with the extended battery (rated at 265 miles on a single charge) and the technology package.

    I can’t say enough good things about the car — it truly is amazing.

    Pros:

    • Pure electric (crazy to think I’ll never need a gas station for the car)
    • Roughly $1 of electricity to go 30 miles (compare that to a $4 gallon of gas to go 30 miles)
    • Unbelievable acceleration (0-60 in 4 seconds)
    • Stunning 17″ touch screen in lieu of a center console (no buttons!)
    • 7 seats for a large family (mine came with the optional jump seats that are rear facing)
    • Smooth ride quality and no noise (the electric engine is basically silent, like a golf cart)
    • Great range at 265 miles
    • Excellent Google Maps navigation system and Slacker internet radio built-in

    Cons:

    • No long road trips off the beaten path (as more electric car superchargers are installed this goes away)
    • High price relative to a similar-sized sedan
    • No parking sensors, blind spot monitoring, etc (gadgets you would expect in a high-end car)
    • Awkward placement of the interior door handles and area to pull the door shut (it’s about six inches too high and too close to the dash)

    Overall, the future is bright and the Tesla Model S is now the standard for all cars, electric or otherwise, going forward. Electric cars are going to succeed and be common on the roads within 10 years.

    What else? What are your thoughts on the Tesla Model S?

  • Lessons Learned from the First Atlanta Tech Village Event

    Last night we had our first real Atlanta Tech Village event where over 200 people came to hear five startups give their pitch as part of the Atlanta Startup Village (ASV at ATV). Being our first major event, we made a ton of mistakes and learned a good bit. Here are some of the lessons learned:

    • The fiber internet and Meraki WiFi gear held up great — the only issue was when the backup Apple AirPort Extreme got overloaded and we weren’t able to use the Apple TV (next time we’ll have the Apple TV on the Meraki WiFi network)
    • 90 chairs won’t cut it when 200+ people show up, but as a temporary space, it worked well (optimal size for the temporary space is ~125 people although 200+ can be in it)
    • From an audio perspective, the big speakers we had up front worked great but we could use another set of speakers in the back
    • Food and drink was well received (thanks sponsors!) but we could have more drink variety next time
    • Community wise, there’s even more demand than expected for entrepreneurs and startups to spend time with their peers
    • Pitch wise, the entrepreneurs did well and covered a good bit of ground

    With our high-end conference center due at the end of the year, more prep by the entrepreneurs doing pitches, and quality food and drink, I’m confident we’ll have the demand for regular 300+ person events at ATV.

    A special thanks to all the organizers of Atlanta Startup Village — we’re honored to have hosted the event at the Village.

    What else? If you attended, what were some of your takeaways from the event?

  • Balancing Product Input with Focus

    Finding the right balance between market/customer feedback and your own vision for the future is tough. Very tough. There’s no shortage of input from different constituents like customers, prospects, team members, investors, partners, and analysts. When starting out, balancing input is even more important because it’s so difficult to get people to talk with you — it’s tempting to take everything to heart from the first couple discussions.

    The risk is that the feedback group is too small of a sample size and doesn’t represent the market. Real customer usage is oxygen for a product, but early on it’s especially hard to achieve much since the product is so early in it’s development. Finding the right balance of input while focusing on what you believe is directionally correct, while having an open mind, is so important.

    When you receive your next piece of product feedback, ask yourself where it fits in with your vision, and whether or not it increases or decreases your market focus.

    What else? What are some other thoughts on balancing product input with focus?

  • Atlanta Startup Village at Atlanta Tech Village March 26th

    Tomorrow’s a big day: the Atlanta Tech Village is hosting the Atlanta Startup Village as its first 100+ person event. With 206 people already signed up, we expect ~150 to actually show up. Free parking, a MARTA station nearby, 400 megs of fiber WiFi, and a completely new venue makes for great infrastructure. The real magic is in the entrepreneurs and the community — no matter how great everything else is, it always comes down to people.

    Here are the five startups presenting:

    The villages are coming together tomorrow night and I’m looking forward to it.

  • 3 Books Every Atlanta Entrepreneur Needs to Read

    Atlanta has a much richer and extensive history with entrepreneurs than most people realize. Many people know about the big success stories with Ted Turner of CNN / Turner Networks, Bernie Marcus and Arthur Blank of Home Depot, and Asa Griggs Candler with John Pemberton creating The Coca-Cola Company. There are many other entrepreneurs in Atlanta that have had major successes including the founders of WebMD, Spanx, and even The Elf of the Shelf from CCA and B Publishing. To better prepare for one’s future it helps to understand one’s past.

    Here are three books every Atlanta entrepreneur needs to read:

    1. A Man in Full – Tom Wolfe’s best-selling novel is also a great way to learn about one of Atlanta’s most prized industries — commercial real estate — and insight into how certain types of people operate
    2. Call Me Ted – Ted Turner was one of the most successful cable entrepreneurs anywhere, let alone Atlanta, and his autobiography is full of interesting stories and anecdotes (fun fact: CNN’s headquarters was an opportunistic purchase of a failed real estate venture)
    3. Jungle Rules – John Imlay built the largest software company in the world right in Atlanta and is the benefactor of angel investing in the city, so it’s only fitting to read his autobiography (fun fact: Imlay’s company, MSA, invented the first maintenance contract to have recurring revenue)

    In 2011, Atlanta’s entrepreneurial activity ranked second in the country with 500 per 100,000 adults. Atlanta has a bright entrepreneurial past and future — study it, live it, and create it.

    What else? What are some other books Atlanta entrepreneurs should read?

  • 3 CRM Trends on the Horizon

    Continuing with yesterday’s post, Will the Next Major CRM Provider Please Stand Up, there are a number of trends on the horizon that will have a major impact on CRM. CRM, or Customer Relationship Management, is such a large market that a number of trends, like social media, have already started changing the product landscape. I’d like to talk about three specific trends.

    Here are three trends in CRM that are on the horizon and will have a serious impact:

    1. Decline in Sales People — just like travel agents, as markets mature and web technologies get better, more and more products and services will be bought in a self-service manner online, reducing the number of sales people (sales people will never go away but technology is going to replace a number of them)
    2. Industry Specific CRMs — one size doesn’t fit all and as more people are exposed to modern, web-based CRMs, the opportunity also grows for a more specialized system that takes into account nuances relevant to that vertical and market (generic systems are already customized to be industry specific, but they aren’t as elegant as a custom built system that achieves a critical mass of customers)
    3. Ease of Integrating Cloud Apps — AppExchange, and the number of third-party apps that integrate into Salesforce.com, is often cited as one of the main reasons Salesforce.com is such a dominant force in the industry, only now there are a number of robust third-party APIs and cloud middleware applications that make it easier than ever to integrate apps, slowly removing one of the biggest barriers to adoption

    CRM serves as the core of many B2B businesses. Over the next 3 – 5 years, we’re going to see many changes and industry trends play out in the market.

    What else? What are some other trends on the horizon that will affect the CRM market?

  • Will the Next Major CRM Player Please Stand Up

    Customer Relationship Management (CRM) has been around for decades. Over the past 10 years, Salesforce.com has risen to prominence as both the largest Software as a Service (SaaS) company in the world and the largest CRM company in the world. Salesforce.com has an incredibly powerful product that is now geared towards the enterprise and over time has moved away from the small and even low mid market segments. Also, at a price point of $65 – $125/user/month (retail), the pricing is more inline with what larger organizations can afford to spend. The product is the most robust and most well integrated with other applications.

    Market wise, there exists an opportunity for a lighter weight, more end-user friendly CRM that’s in the $5 – $15/user/month for the small to mid-sized business segment of the market. It doesn’t need to be as comprehensive as Salesforce.com, but it does need to be fairly customizable, and just as important, integrate with a large number of third-party apps (one of the most challenging things). SugarCRM, NetSuite, and Microsoft Dynamics CRM have strong products, but all target the enterprise with products that are north of $30/user/month.

    Here are some of the current contenders in the SMB market:

    So, the SMB market is clearly healthy with a number of competitors, but talking to other entrepreneurs, no system dominates. I believe over the next 2-3 years another CRM player will emerge as the leading SMB provider, and it’s only a matter of time before the winner becomes apparent.

    What else? Do you use any of these products and who do you think will be the next major CRM player?

  • Scholarship Criteria at the Atlanta Tech Village

    One of the projects we’re working on at the Atlanta Tech Village is setting up a scholarship program for entrepreneurs and startups. The idea is that internally as well as sponsors might want to support certain areas that aren’t as represented like social enterprises, student entrepreneurs, B2C startups, specific industry verticals, etc. We’re confident that our strength is going to be B2B/enterprise software but part of our overall mission is to support the entire tech and startup ecosystem.

    Besides the obvious question of how many scholarships will we have, which will be determined by sponsorships, the next question is: what criteria will we use to decide?

    Here are some criteria ideas we’re currently brainstorming (it would be a combination of attributes):

    • Startups that haven’t raised any money
    • Startups that have less than a certain amount of total revenue (e.g. $10,000)
    • Startups with specific founder characteristics (e.g. certain demographics)
    • Startups targeting a vertical desired by a sponsor (e.g. a large digital media company that wants to help other digital media startups)
    • Startups with a double or triple bottom line (e.g. a social enterprise that helps the community and makes money)

    Over time we’ll figure out what does and doesn’t work with scholarships. Right now, we’re looking forward to trying it out and learning as we go.

    What else? What are some other ideas for scholarship criteria?

  • 7 Ideas for Startup Metrics to Track

    With so many metrics out there, it’s easy for a startup to get bogged down looking for the elusive “perfect” KPIs to monitor. From a CEO perspective, I always like to focus on keeping it as simple as possible with no more than two high-level numbers for each department to report on weekly. Now, of course, there are many more metrics tracked behind-the-scenes, but a small number makes it easy to concentrate.

    Here are seven ideas for startup metrics to track on a weekly basis:

    1. Annual recurring revenue — the current run rate of the business, which represents the health of the enterprise from a top-line, financial vantage point
    2. Lost recurring revenue — the amount of annual recurring revenue that churned in the previous week
    3. Weighted sales pipeline — the amount of new annual recurring revenue expected to be added in the next 30 days, weighted by likelihood of closing
    4. New marketing qualified leads — the number of new leads that came in the past week that meet marketing’s definition of a qualified lead
    5. New marketing pipeline value — the dollar amount of sales opportunity pipeline added in the past week from marketing qualified leads (the marketing qualified leads don’t have to have come in the same week)
    6. New on boarded customers — the number of new customers that have finished the quick start/on boarding process in the past week
    7. Net promoter score — the percent likelihood of customers surveyed in the past week to recommend the product to a colleague or friend

    Bonus: if the startup is venture backed, another important metric is burn rate or number of months until the business runs out of money.

    Tracking metrics on a weekly basis, displaying them on a public LED scoreboard, and making sure everyone knows where the startup stands, is a great way to align the company and hit the goals.

    What else? What are some other startup metrics you really like to track?

  • 7 Ideas from Today’s Interview at the Insights with Entrepreneurs Series

    Earlier today I had the opportunity to be interviewed by Sam Williams of the Metro Atlanta Chamber in front of 100+ people as part of the Insights with Entrepreneurs series. We covered a variety of topics ranging from Atlanta entrepreneurship to Pardot to the Atlanta Tech Village.

    Here are a few notes from today’s conversation:

    1. Atlanta has all the natural resources to be a top 10 tech startup city due to Georgia Tech, a low cost of living, many young professionals, the world’s busiest airport, and great internet connectivity (Atlanta is the number one place in the country for data centers)
    2. Pardot’s success came down to culture, timing, and execution
    3. Pardot’s culture was defined by the following:
      Be the best place to work and the best place to be a customer
      Good work, good people, and good pay
      Core values are positive, self-starting, and supportive
    4. Most often, the original business idea isn’t the idea that ends up being successful — Pardot started as a PPC bid arbitrage platform before pivoting into marketing automation software
    5. Atlanta Tech Village’s goal is to be a rainforest where chaos and weeds ensue instead of being a planned farm with organized crops
    6. The Atlanta Tech Village, at 103,000 sq ft, is the largest tech entrepreneur center in the Southeast and the largest coworking space in the Southeast (25,000 sq ft)
    7. Atlanta Tech Village has sold over 100 memberships in the first 75 days purely through word of mouth, Twitter, and PR

    Bonus: I shared my work / life balance strategy.

    I enjoyed the Metro Atlanta Chamber event and it was fun to meet several new people.

    What else? If you were at the event, what are some ideas you took away from it?