Category Archives: Digital

Startup Showdown A Welcome Addition To ATC’s Second CEO Summit

Posted on by
Reply

The second day of ATC’s CEO Summit wrapped up last Friday with the Startup Showdown, featuring Baytan Labs, MapMyFitness, Convergence Wireless, VivoGig, and Toopher. We captured some tweets along with commentary and have more coverage planned this week, so stay tuned. We used Storify’s tool to craft the original piece. You can see that version here.

Baytan Labs kicked things off by showcasing their Guardian Trace app, a local positioning service (LPS) for the iOS platform that addresses personal security. It uses Google maps and provides emergency contacts with the users last known location. I caught up with the Baytan team and heard from CEO Mike Davis on markets outside of personal security. They plan to market to enterprise customers as well, providing a cloud-based offering that employees can use to set up monitoring through their department, on a per-seat basis. As good as that sounds, the consumer is still the main focus, with a commercialization strategy that hinges on the home monitoring market.

The next pitch came from Convergence Wireless. They’re in the red hot energy efficiency sector, focusing on tech that delivers wireless-based automation around things like lighting controls. Local startup advisor Ben Dyer told us the company is well positioned with a solid portfolio of IP. We’re hearing it might skip the company build-out and license its IP to someone like Schneider Electric.

The third pitch was from MapMyFitness, a company positioning itself in the health and wellness industry. The guys did a great job conveying the market potential for its approach. They’ve built a solid social network around fitness enthusiasts but were quick to point out the other areas ripe for expansion. They emphasized the fact that there’s really no companies addressing the fitness and diet market on large scale. Their CEO said the number one thing prescribed by doctors to combat illness is 30 minutes of exercise. The other most prescribed was diet.

Needto.com was next up, a company positioning itself to disrupt a few spaces. Their marketplace serves the adhoc tasks and jobs market. At first glance, you’d think the company’s competitors are solely the Craigslists and Angie Lists of the world. But if you grasp where they’re headed, the competition is actually closer to companies like ServiceMagic and RedBeacon. They plan to take the best of what traditional directory services do, and throw in some Craiglsist-esque features to drive user participation and scale. If they can fill in some voids that some of the incumbents aren’t providing — like richer profiles and commerce, watch out. This space is ripe for disruption.

If you were there, there wasn’t any doubt who put on the best show. It’s tough to beat a guy that pulls out a blender. But it wasn’t all show for Toopher’s mobile authentication technology — they pulled out the win. Like some of its peers, Toopher’s market spans across a few sweet spots: identity theft and the broader market for newer security apps. Replacing older methods for logging into apps and services — like USB fobs — is the obvious one. They’re taking that further, though. Because they piggyback on existing logins with location services, your mobile essentially becomes an extra level of security by pushing each request to your phone and giving you the option to approve. Toopher likely has some additional work to do as it moves upstream, especially in larger enterprises and public sector environments. Simplicity and a strong mobile and security combination seem to working for them now, with more visibility sure to come with the ATC win..congratulations.

The last pitch came from Daniel Senyard and the Vivogig team.They describe themselves as a live music photography platform, but hearing Senyard and their head of strategy pitch, you can see the broader opportunities. They’re a content company that enables a huge audience segment (music fans) to create content. And increasingly that creation is happening in real-time and on mobile devices. Musicians and artists are in dire need of tools to get closer to fans, so while that might carry them, it’s easy to see how brands, events, and even sports franchises could tap into VivoGig’s stream. They’ve built a nice web front-end, but more importantly their capturing data. And that data is gold to companies building businesses around advertising and content. You might think of Facebook first, but I heard them mention a linkage to Billboard’s music group. That seems like a viable match. Being the source of data for artists to grow their brand is attractive, but the better bet might be providing real-time fan sentiment and content to the business side of the music industry.

We’ll be publishing some pieces on a few of the other panels, but before that, here’s a few items that were relevant to the competition. John Stockton (not the hoopster) at Mayfield Fund had a few zingers during the VC panel, not the least of which was captured by Doug Bain below.

One of the more colorful VCs was NEA’s Jimmy Treybig. His quote below was particularly timely as much of the second day’s discussion focused on how big the market opportunities need to be to even get the attention of many venture capitalists.

Lastly, let’s not forget the ATC Council team and their hard work. It’s these kinds of events that help connect the ecosystem of entrepreneurs, business leaders and passionate Austinites. Great job on a great event.

CareFlash and Coro Health Team-Up

Posted on by
Reply

Coro Health and CareFlash, thought leaders in new media care innovation, have melded together their flagship products – CoroFaith and CareCommunities – integrating community and spirituality into a seamless, user-specific experience – nurturing better outcomes across the entire care continuum – throughout recovery, rehabilitation and aging as well as with impending losses and the grief that follows.

CareCommunities – each a private, invitation-only social media experience, enable family caretakers and loved ones to go far beyond the common tendency to limit interactions to recovery updates, well-wishes and messages of support.  By aggregating meaningful community with spirituality – emotional barriers recede and concerns about intrusiveness diminish – improving outlook, optimism and overall wellness.

David Schofman, Coro Health CEO noted, “We are excited by the ways this partnership transcends symptoms and circumstances, providing rich content and timely capabilities enhancing quality of life, improving emotional health and nurturing better outcomes within life and beyond.”

Jay Drayer, CareFlash CEO added, “Social media continues to re-define how people interact.  Every sentiment we hear indicates that by combining these best of breed approaches to community and spirituality, we are enhancing outcomes – as much in aging, recovery and rehabilitation as in bereavement.”

BuildASign Continues Rapid Growth, Moves to New HQ

Posted on by
Reply

BuildASign.com, a leading online custom printing provider, today opened the doors to its expanded office and manufacturing spaces following a year of incredible business growth. An official ribbon cutting ceremony was hosted by BuildASign.com CEO Dan Graham and Phyllis Snodgrass of the Austin Chamber of Commerce Tuesday afternoon at the new location in North Austin. The expanded facilities more than double the company’s space, with over 80,000 square feet split between its corporate office and manufacturing space.

The company, which was founded in 2005 and has remained totally bootstrapped, boasted record financials in 2011, with $30 million in revenue, up 50% from 2010. Hiring momentum also continued, with the addition of 115 new employees since the start of 2011, bringing the staff to more than 240.

“Austin continues to lead the nation in job growth, and companies like BuildASign.com are at the forefront of that trend,” said Phyllis Snodgrass, Senior Vice President of Membership and Investor Relations for the Austin Chamber of Commerce. “BuildASign.com has had a tremendous impact on the city of Austin both by providing a wealth of jobs and giving back to the community through numerous philanthropic efforts. We thank them for their contributions and congratulate them on their continued success.”

BuildASign.com has received numerous local and national accolades, including recognition on the Inc. 5000 list for two years running, the Internet Retailer Top 500,  and three years as an Austin Business Journal Fast 50 award winner.  Despite its fast growth, BuildASign.com remains committed to preserving its culture and has been selected as one of the Best Places to Work by the Austin Business Journalfor the past four years.
“I attribute every bit of our success to the hard work of the entire BuildASign.com team,” said Dan Graham, BuildASign.com Founder and CEO. “We take pride in hiring only the best people, and it’s their passion that not only fuels our growth but makes for one of the best work environments around.”

With its growth, BuildASign.com has also scaled its philanthropic efforts, contributing more than $350,000 to over 400 local and national nonprofits through its BuildASign Gives program. The company has also received national recognition for its donation of nearly 240,000 Welcome Home banners to friends and families of returning military, valuing more than $7.6 million.

BuildASign.com’s latest philanthropic program, Canvas for a Cause, was launched in early 2012 through the company’s home décor brand, Easy Canvas Prints. Its current campaign celebrates Military Appreciation Month, with 25% of purchases made at www.easycanvasprints.com/military with code “Military2012” donated to select national nonprofit partners that support military service members and their families, including Armed Services YMCA.

Q&A Wednesday :: Spacecraft

Posted on by
Reply

Today’s Q&A Wednesday is with Adam Moore, CEO and co-founder of Spacecraft. I first met with Adam about 9 months ago when they first started the company, so it’s pretty exciting to see the product finally brought to market.

Q: Explain what you do in a way that my mom can understand?
SpaceCraft provides everything you need to easily create, maintain, and host a small business website.

Q: What was your “lightbulb” moment when you knew you had something?
My co-founder Jeff Williams and I spent the last decade building enterprise-level websites and mobile applications at big creative agencies. When we decided to start a business together, we discussed all kinds of ideas ranging from something in social media to digital signage. Eventually, our conversations returned to what we loved doing most – web design and development – and to the customer base that is most underserved – small businesses. The lightbulb went off when we decided to bring a big agency approach to the small business market. So far, our customers love the level of service they’re getting…and that we feel they deserve.

Q: What will make you shine above the competitors?
When we started developing the SpaceCraft product, we identified four key areas where we felt the small business market was being underserved, and we built our platform and service offerings around these needs. First, we wanted to make sure that SpaceCraft sites work across all devices (mobile, tablet and PCs.) We leveraged responsive design techniques and the latest technologies including HTML5 to automatically resize and rearrange content across these devices with no additional work for the customer. Next, we wanted to make it incredibly easy for our customers to update and manage their content, so we created a simple interface and powerful design tools to give them the flexibility to easily make changes. Third, we know how important it is for small businesses to be found on the web, so from the start, we built our platform using the latest SEO principles leveraging structured data in everything we do. Last, it’s crucial for small businesses to get the help that they need when they need it, so we have a team of specialists that can be reached on the phone, and we also offer live workshops where we walk customers through the setup and design process in a supportive, judgement-
free zone.

Q: Who are some of your first customers?
It’s been awesome to see the diversity in the industries who are building SpaceCraft websites, from restaurants and bars to doctors’ offices to even a professional bull rider. We modeled our platform over 18 different industries and have over 300 unique business types, and we continue to add to this every day as new industries sign up. We’re also excited to have Lance Armstrong as one of our first customers!

Q: The best advice we’ve received so far has been:
One of our customers told us to charge more! But since that’s not in the plan…

This is a huge opportunity and a huge market, and one of our investors told us early on to stay focused on our customers’ needs and what we’re trying to create for them. This has really helped us build a great first release product.

Software Talent Tops The List In Door64′s First Hiring Survey

Posted on by
Reply

Austin’s burgeoning ecosystem of startups is in high gear, buoyed by the rise of cloud-based infrastructure, mobile development, and cleaner technologies. Behind that growth is a vibrant tech community of software engineers, analysts and project managers. But what about more established companies? What types of skills are hiring managers seeking? That’s what Austin’s largest tech community, Door64, wants to answer with the initial release of its Hiring Priority Survey.

“We all know, it is often one or two key holes in a company that can impede growth,” said Door64 founder, Matt Genovese. “We are stepping up and surveying the hiring managers of a set of sizable Austin area technology companies every quarter starting now with today’s survey results, to get deliberately granular about what these hiring shortages are.”

Door64 gathered more than 100 responses and whittled down the results to represent more than 50 managers with companies in full business operations. When polled on their top 3 hiring priorities from 15 specific categories, 56% cited software as number one, more than hardware, semiconductor and Information Technology (IT) skills – combined.

The IT component was the closest category after software, tallying a meager 20%. That shows enterprises are eager to get new apps and toolsets to market, with extra lift coming from the mobile space as iPads and smartphones continue to proliferate.

Digging deeper into the software category, four skills accounted for 40% of hiring priorities, with Java, User Interface / User Experience (UI/UX), Software Quality Assurance, and .NET skills topping all others. The UX needs aren’t surprising with the challenges of adoption in large enterprises, and as Door64 notes, neither is the Ruby on Rails results.

“Ruby is often used in the earliest stage build of technology companies, and startups were not included in the survey,” it said in a prepared statement.

Conversely, the data showed Java is still the front-runner in Austin’s enterprise market, as it garnered 16% of responses in the software category, good enough for 30% of total software needs. That seems to mesh with what’s happening on a larger scale. The bigger companies are tying together applications, building private and public clouds, and launching all sorts of mobile capabilities. Enterprise java is often the glue that unifies these disparate systems. And java demand likely won’t see a slow-down as business units continue push the consumerization of IT.

One other thing that jumped out was the SharePoint piece, Microsoft’s 800-pound gorilla for corporate collaboration. Door64 says only one or two companies even mentioned it. Some of that can be attributed to an organization’s size, but the cloud is also eating away at SharePoint. I’d guess companies are realizing the cloud model works pretty well for breaking off pieces of your collaboration needs, not to mention easing the the maintenance and integration often associated with SharePoint.

Two other skills, Database Architects (DBA), and PHP developers, also sparked little interest. It would be interesting to hear more details from the respondents on this one. With big data’s rise, I’d wager most good DBAs are transitioning to some of the open source data engines and honing in on the demand to make sense of unstructured data. Just a hunch.

Lastly, and highly welcomed, Door64 says it’s planning to formalize its findings and poll 100 or so local technology companies each quarter and publish those results to an Austin Index of sorts.

But wait, there’s more. They’re also applying the findings to the Austin Pain-point Job Fair coming up June 29 at the AT&T Conference Center at University of Texas. You might call it a data-driven job fair. How fitting. :)

Related articles

A Simple Message From Tim O’Reilly: Create More Value Than You Capture

Posted on by
Reply

Image from Flickr, Via InUse Consulting

Value is a term that’s thrown around quite a bit these days. And when it lives in the context of the corporation, it tends to get scrutinized even more.

If you’re familiar with media CEO and web visionary Tim O’Reilly, you know he’s been pitching a simple message around value for some time: create more of it than you capture. During last month’s SXSWi session, “Create More Value Than You Capture,” MIT researcher Andrew McAfee and O’Reilly analyzed its role in the rise of sustainable business, outsourcing, and machine-driven automation.

“Consider Microsoft, whose vision of a computer on every desk and in every home changed the world of computing forever, and created a rich ecosystem for developers. But as Microsoft’s growth stalled, they gradually consumed more and more of the opportunity for themselves, and innovators moved elsewhere, to the Internet.”

While it’s easy to beat up on big companies, the idea is that an ecosystem is essentially a company’s lifeline. And Redmond, for better or worse, is a classic example because so much of its software business rides on the integration and development expertise of channel partners.

“If you have too small of a group capturing value then the whole ecosystem breaks down,” he told McAfee. Soon after, O’Reilly eased up on the Microsoft example, saying it had never been an evil empire. Almost on cue, the other favorite evil empire, Google, surfaced. O’Reilly urged business leaders to stay focused on big, hairy, audacious goals, and described how some of the greatest companies always have a higher sense of purpose.

“As Google is increasingly dominated by economic concerns, they will become less successful,” he said. “Our job is to work for all of us, not for this or that interest group.”

From there, the conversation turned to areas where technology-driven disruption is occurring, something McAfee researched and co-authored in his book with Erik Brynjolfsson, Race Against the Machine.

McAfee touched on the rise of automation and outsourcing, commenting that the gains from replacing people with machines and overseas labor is taking a toll on the economy.

“It seems the value is be going into the paychecks of CEOs, instead of back into society. More and more jobs are being taken over by machines,” said McAfee.

One of the scenarios mentioned was connecting Apple’s SIRI application to Moore’s Law. Both men agreed the result could be less human-powered customer service, especially in e-commerce environments.

The other business models mentioned revolved around peer-to-peer and collaborative consumption as the basis for unlocking value. Both strategies are built on the idea that there’s plenty of value within a community of users. Unlocking that value is where the magic happens, and what eventually leads to value creation and monetization, explained O’Reilly. He went on to reference Couchsurfing.com and AirBNB.com as examples.

Both panelists were asked to elaborate on other areas ripe for disruption.

Not surprisingly, manufacturing, government, and education were the top three picks from O’Reilly. And while manufacturing might be having the biggest renaissance, he seemed to think government could be the biggest opportunity of all. His comparison was one the tech-rich audience appreciated.

“Government should focus on being a platform provider instead of a solution provider,” he explained. As the session ended, a humble O’Reilly recapped some of his ideas, all grounded in his consistent message of working on stuff that matters.

“Find people as passionate as you are,” he said. “It’s important to create value for society and make the world a better place to fill in the needs.”

ATC Adds New Board Members

Posted on by
Reply

Austin Technology Council, along with Austin’s technology leaders, approved the addition of Dennis McWilliams of Apollo Endosurgery, Lynn Atchison of Homeaway, John Arrow of Mutual Mobile and Adam Berman of TVA Medical to the ATC board.   These executives reflect the fast growth areas of Austin technology – bio tech and medical, mobile and wireless, consumer and Web 2.0 technologies.  All four will join the already-strong existing ATC board in continuing to make sure ATC is an organization that creates high value for the Austin technology community.

The current ATC Board executive committee comprises:

McWilliams, Atchison, Arrow and Berman join the existing ATC Board of Directors, which comprises:

ATC also counts on its advisory board Rob Bridges, Managing Director, Wortham Insurance and Kevin Timmons, CTO Cyrus One.

“As the voice of technology in Central Texas, it is critical that our board reflects the present – and future – of this region,” said ATC President, Julie Huls.  “Having a greater representation in bio tech, mobile and consumer tech is a statement that we will be strengthening our efforts to increase growth in the areas we believe are important to the region’s future.”
The new board additions are leaders at their companies and in the Austin community in a number of ways.

Dennis McWilliams, CEO and founder of Apollo Endosurgery, has decades of bio technology, medical devices and drug therapy experience.  Prior to Apollo, McWilliams was at PTV Sciences a life science, med devices VC firm, and before that, he was COO and co-founder of Chrysalis BioTechnology where he was responsible for the raise of $15M funding, and ultimate acquisition by OrthoLogic Corp, now Capstone.  McWilliams has his undergrad from University of Texas, and a masters in Engineering Management from Stanford.

Lynn Atchison, as CFO of Homeaway, can count its successful IPO as one of her achievements.  With nearly 30 years finance and operations experience, Atchison was awarded CFO of the year for Austin in 2009.  Prior to Homeaway, Atchison was with Infoglide, Hoovers – where she was instrumental in the sale to Dun & Bradstreet – and Travelogix.  Prior to corporate life, she was a senior manager at Ernst & Young.

John Arrow, CEO of Mutual Mobile, founded this company and several others in just the last 10 years. Arrow’s focus is tapping into disruptive and emerging technologies, currently innovating in the mobile applications space.  Prior to Mutual Mobile, Arrow built businesses in online payment processing, PPC advertising networks and consumer and enterprise software.

Adam Berman is CEO of TVA Medical which focuses on the development of medical devices for patients suffering from kidney failure. Previously, Berman was COO at Castlewood Surgical, who’s surgery devices reduce the risk of stroke, and VP R&D for MedicalCV and its cardiac laser ablation system.   Before those, Berman was with Coalescent Surgical acquired by Medtronic, and Computer Motion, as surgical robotics company acquired by Intuitive Surgical.  Berman holds a BSE in Biomedical Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and an MSE in Bioengineering from the University of Washington.

Big Data Has Entered The Building

Posted on by
Reply

Unless you’ve been under a big rock, you’ve heard the chat about big data. It describes the tools and practices associated with unlocking the value in large amounts of structured and unstructured data. If that sounds confusing, just think of of how much information is being created daily. Now think of what it takes to find the nuggets that matter. Big data means big business.

According to analyst firm IDC, the big data market will grow from $3.2 billion in 2010 to $16.9 billion in 2015, growing 7 times faster than the information and communications technology (ICT) market.

To get a sense for how fast the space is moving, MIT researcher and author Andrew McAfee points to a project from Allstate that was submitted to Kaggle, who runs data prediction contests.

More than 200 people on 107 teams submitted 1290 entries to try and win the $10,000 prize.  What’s more striking is that the winning entry was 340% more accurate than Allstate’s existing methodology for predicting claims based on vehicle characteristics. Oh, and it took only 90 days. [chart below]

McAfee says that the prediction models, tools and techniques have changed so rapidly over the last decade, large companies are simply outgunned. Predictably, that’s forcing those same organizations to rethink their core competencies.

 

“If a bunch of kids and outsiders, who don’t know our customers, markets, and histories at all, can make much better predictions that we can in critically important areas, what does this imply? Do we need to completely rethink how we make our predictions? Do we need to outsource or crowdsource the making of predictions, even if we currently think of it as a ‘core competence?’

So what other areas are ripe for the reach of big data? Booming industries like oil and gas are one of the obvious segments. There’s tons of activity, an ecosystem of companies providing complementary services, and of course cash on hand to hire the data scientists and number crunchers.  Austin’s own Drilling Info is a case in point. It closed a big round of funding recently, one that shows when industry processes can be transformed, the money will likely follow.

“If you go back 10 years, oil and gas companies would hire consultants to go to repositories of information at the state level, and manually collect data, put it into a spreadsheet and analyze it,” says Deven Parekh, a managing director with Insight. “What we’re really doing now is making that data available through regular workflows on a daily basis.”

Insight’s Parekh also mentions the importance of domain expertise, something often overlooked as organizations dive deeper into analytics.

“In three or four years, the technology itself may become fairly standard, but the key will be in having the deep vertical knowledge.” Of course, as we saw with AllState, data-driven insights might actually alter what some companies see as their real expertise.

Lastly, McKinsey published a report last Fall on the big data movement. One of its notable excerpts was the image below, showing an industry-specific view of big data projects as well as which segments stand to gain the most.

Their report also identified one of the biggest challenges lurking  in large organizations — the dreaded silo.

“One big challenge is the fact that the mountains of data many companies are amassing often lurk in departmental “silos,” such as R&D, engineering, manufacturing, or service operations—impeding timely exploitation.”

But surely we can unlock all this data with all the technology we have, right? Sure we can. But just in case, let’s hear it for big data’s next hero, the system integrator.

Enhanced by Zemanta

How Important Are Industry Clusters To Startups?

Posted on by
2
If I suggested a way for your clean energy startup to set-up shop near a bunch of companies involved in things like renewable technology and the smartgrid, what would you say? If I sweetened the deal and told you the list of companies included a few of the Fortune 500 and a slew of established mid-market companies, you’d probably say, “sign me up!”
 
So goes part of the argument for industry clusters, a term that Harvard Professor Michael Porter explored in the late 1990’s. And with the economy in somewhat of a rebound, there’s more discussion around how industry clusters can spark regional growth. But there’s obviously more to it than filling up business parks with like-minded corporations in similar verticals. Or is there?
 
A recent Forbes piece highlighted an industry cluster in the Midwest, where a smaller startup was able to ramp up operations because of its alliance with a larger, more established company.
 

“Vadxx Energy has gained a lot of value from being part of an active cluster of advanced energy companies and organizations. In fact, one of the big reasons our partnership with Rockwell Automation occurred was because of Vadxx’s participation in Northeast Ohio’s advanced energy cluster. Joining forces with a credible, multinational company has helped us accelerate our commercialization activities, raise additional capital, and attract new customers.”

But proximity and a burgeoning market only guarantee so much. It starts with human capital, driven by the innovators and risk-takers that comprise much of the entrepreneurial community. That’s where I see the bridge to Austin’s community, as well as its strength.

Washington Post columnist Vivek Wadhwa amplified that point.

“A recent analysis of 1,604 companies in the five largest Norwegian cities underscores what’s missing from this prescription for a knowledge economy: people. The prerequisite for a regional innovation system is knowledgeable people who have the motivation and ability to start ventures. To succeed, these people need to be connected to one another by information-sharing networks. Basic infrastructure is always needed, but fancy science parks and big industry are just nice to have.”

Now granted, Norway (and other Scandinavian countries) isn’t the most culturally heterogeneous region by any stretch. But more importantly, its leaders are committed to maintaining global ties and welcoming new ideas and inputs — outside of their regional comfort zones. Without that, as the study concludes, regional and national clusters are mostly “irrelevant” to innovation.

Whatever the results, Austin is a classic fit for much of the positives associated with clusters. When you add in the emphasis on human capital, strong industry segments, and access to a top-tier university, it’s hard to see how doubling down on the idea doesn’t make sense.

NYT had a piece this morning on manufacturing, but I was more interested in this stat on where most of the R&D activity in the US takes place.

“American multinational companies that account for about 84 percent of all private-sector (non-bank) business R.&D. in the United States still place about 84 percent of their R.&D. activities in the United States, often in clusters around research universities..”

Again, manufacturing aside, that’s a big percentage of spending that hovers around clusters. And Austin’s familiar with the scenario, especially with Austin Technology Incubator’s alignment with the University of Texas and the fact that accelerators are moving closer to downtown hotbeds of startup activity. And that R&D spending? It’s companies like Dell, Facebook, Samsung and others spending those dollars.

So whether or not you buy into the cluster concept, here’s an excerpt from a recent ITIF report on cities and innovation I’ll leave you with.

“One reason why technology industries drive income growth is that average wages in high-tech clusters are $63,970 versus $43,180 in non-high tech traded clusters. One key factor that appears to drive higher incomes in a region is a higher share of employment in knowledge-based industries.States with higher concentrations of knowledge-based industries, including professional services and high-tech manufacturing, have higher incomes.”

Related articles

Sparefoot Opens New Headquarters

Posted on by
Reply

Austin-based Sparefoot moved into new Headquarters last week, celebrating with an office party last week. Having been to their previous offices, which was substantially smaller and required storing massive amounts of snacks in the hallway, their new digs are downright luxurious.

The space features 99% re-purposed materials, graffiti art by Austin artist Sloke, an 18 foot shuffleboard table, dart board, foosball, a Super Mario mural (one of the co-founders is named Mario), sushi-inspired conference room, a full bar, and a kegerator.

The company is fresh off their 3rd place finish at the Startup Olympics, raised $2M in venture capital in 2010, and is a Capital Factory 2008 company.

Enhanced by Zemanta