Tags / startups

BonitaSoft announced last week that they raised a third round, $13M, from several parties last week.  Apparently BPM startups are still investable!  And apparently BPM isn’t dead yet (sarcasm alert!).  BonitaSoft has been one of the most successful open source … Continue reading →

We were pretty excited that our friends at Capital Factory hosted the President last week.  On a personal note, I was even more thrilled that my wife was able to meet him at the event!  Imagine my surprise when we … Continue reading →

Today (yesterday by the time you read this) Obama came to visit Austin. Pretty exciting.  One of his stops was Capital Factory, one of the incubator/co-working spaces in Austin that was co-founded by my friend Joshua Baer.  Lori Hawkins covered … Continue reading →

I’d have been more surprised if this happened a few years ago, but Lean Startup thinking has become so prevalent that even the conservative Harvard Business Review had to notice and address the topic eventually. Even better, they reached out … Continue reading →

If you lived on the beach and never went swimming in the ocean, are you really living?  If you live in Austin and never listen to live music, are you really living? Two articles recently call to mind the expectations … Continue reading →

Reading about why TapSavvy Chose Austin (in the spirit of the I Choose Austin meme), there’s a current running underneath the reasons why they chose Austin: Austin has become home to B2B innovation.  Mike Maples Jr. has talked about it … Continue reading →

Chris Dixon writes some great stuff on his blog. And this one on the Credentials Trap is no exception. I talk a lot to people who are deciding between startups and established companies. They’re usually early in their careers and … Continue reading →

I liked this thought by Om Malik, and Max Levchin, on the long view: When asked, he said that it is time to get off the four-year-cycle of the Silicon Valley startup. However, to solve bigger problems, sometimes you need … Continue reading →

There’s a lot of advice in startup circles advising entrepreneurs to not be shy – to ask for the help they want.  To avail themselves of many free resources that are available (and which they might assume they need to … Continue reading →

(On the heels of the Apple Comes to Austin post… ) Forbes has published a great article about John Price and Austin: Trilogy reached about $15 million in sales in 1994 and Price was concerned that it couldn’t grow anymore … Continue reading →

Looks like another Austin-based startup has found a good exit: We have some big and happy news to announce: BlackLocus has just been acquired by The Home Depot!Our passion for data-driven decision making led us to start BlackLocus a few … Continue reading →

I just had to give Dollar Shave Club a try.  The tongue-in-cheek video and simple buying process appealed to me as a customer and as a process guy. So I gave it a spin.  Dollar Shave Club says their razors … Continue reading →

Two recent posts by entrepreneurs in Austin got my attention with respect to culture. First, Mass Relevance’s move to Downtown.  I have to admit, Sam Decker is the last guy I thought would move his company downtown.  But after seeing … Continue reading →

Good advice often comes in small sound bites at the end of a long post… In the end, screw it, just build the best company you can, for you. You’re wrong about most of what you think about those competitors … Continue reading →

If anyone is reinventing the venture capital process, it would have to be Andreessen Horowitz (a16z for the spelling challenged or localization-software-inclined).  A recent post by Chris Dixon underlines that fact, as he announces that he’s joining their firm: Earlier … Continue reading →

These raises might not make the news in Silicon Valley but each one is the seed of something bigger brewing in Austin.  The ABJ does a good job covering the local business news and startup news: At least five Austin-area … Continue reading →

Reading my friend Thom Singer’s blog was the first place that I found out Bryan Menell is now CEO of SublteData – congratulations to both sides of that connection! Bryan Menell has recently taken the reigns as CEO of a … Continue reading →

Horace Dediu’s Q&A has an excellent indictment of policy initiatives around innovation:  fundamentally, policies are good at preserving or sustaining than they are at disrupting – Almost all growth has come from companies that entered the space. Google, Amazon, Apple … Continue reading →

Question asked, question answered: The 2013 South By Southwest Interactive Festival has landed one of the mind behind a space startup and an electric sports car manufacturer as one of its four keynote speakers. Billionaire Elon Musk is CEO and … Continue reading →

The land of “culinary startup” seems to be Austin, Texas – we’re not just the live music capital, nor just silicon hills… The Statesman just released a list of the top 50 restaurants.  I’ve been to (almost) all of them, … Continue reading →

KUT News asks the question: Is Austin a Tech Center or a Tech Colony? It starts with a predictable premise: Almost every day we hear about out-of-town tech companies opening branch offices in Austin.  What does that mean? Could the … Continue reading →

So Apple had some news today.  Easy to miss with Sandy bearing down on the East Coast. I don’t have any inside sources at Apple.  Or any inside scoop on Forstall or Cook.  Gruber and others have that covered better … Continue reading →

We’re proud to announce that Rich Phillips is joining BP3 as Chief Strategy Officer. Lance and I were fortunate enough to get to know Rich while he was an executive at a Lombardi customer.  We couldn’t be more excited about … Continue reading →

It looks like San Francisco is having conflicting feelings about the tech boom.  San Francisco Magazine has a long read entitled “How Much Tech Can One City Take?” With the ominous subtitle: “Shaken by the latest digital gold rush, San … Continue reading →

There might be a process here somewhere… Unlike most companies, which seek business veterans to run new branches, H.Bloom is finding recent graduates and molding them into managers. It spends three to six months training them in a SEED program, … Continue reading →

BP3 placed #11 in last year’s list, but this year we were up a couple of notches to #8 in the “Under $10M” category of the Austin Business Journal’s Fast 50 listing.  We went to the reception last week and … Continue reading →

Apparently a lot of founders of companies feel particularly lonely.  Om Malik added to this meme the other day in “Founders & importance of friends“. He says no one tells you about the tough days, but actually I see a … Continue reading →

No surprise, but I liked Fred Wilson’s take on sustainability for businesses.  He captures perfectly the ethos we’ve been running BP3 under: If you want to stay in business forever, you have to focus on the long term. You must … Continue reading →

Just saw this blog post from Clay Richardson of Forrester, titled “Think Like A Lean Startup for BPM Success”: The next day when I reflected on the conversation, I had a moment of satori. I could see that startups share … Continue reading →

These guys are really killing it, and it makes me proud to know a few of them well.  I don’t know what Michael Griffin’s early pitch to each of these key hires was, but he has absolutely leveraged them to … Continue reading →

For two Austin companies in the news today. First, Calxeda has raised a monster $55M to keep investing in ARM-technology for data centers.  Austin has long had a reputation for excellent chip design talent, and hardware talent.  Because not every … Continue reading →

There are many reasons to read this lengthy post from Mark Suster, but as you get toward the bottom you get to my favorite part: I want the definition of startup back. To be used by anybody who is willing … Continue reading →

Editor’s note: Following up on the last post, this one seemed appropriate to post next… Indeed was just purchased by Recruit Co. Ltd of Japan.  Whether you like Indeed’s service or not, you have to admire how they went about … Continue reading →

Laura Beck wrote a great piece for Austin Startup the other day.  She was responding to an August TechCrunch story about Lyft, and the apparently blown PR embargo at launch. Both of them are great reads, for different reasons.  The … Continue reading →

A couple of posts that are really interesting reads, about starting, or not starting, a company. First is David Lee’s post, “Why I never Started My Own Company“, which I found thanks to a tumblr post by John Lilly. David … Continue reading →

… then what is your company’s secret sauce? Zambonini writes: I’ve lived in three different countries and travelled around the world, and a recurring theme in the web communities of large cities is a desire to replicate the successes and … Continue reading →

Why, BP3 is, in the Daily Texan Online, which is running a story about the expansion of tech companies in Austin and the impact on employment for graduates.  The article makes several good points about Apple, GM, and others, but … Continue reading →

There are lots of great startups in Austin these days.  Lots of great startup ideas even.  But the most important startups, for my money, are the ones that serve great food: “We were down there having a beer,” Schmidt-Franks says, … Continue reading →

I have to say I really appreciate the opportunity to get everyone at BP3 together in one place, at least once a year.  As much as we tout the virtual, home-office model of the modern world, people are social, physical … Continue reading →

Great read in the New York Times about the hardware renaissance in Silicon Valley.  I suppose it is particularly interesting to point out the shift in Silicon Valley, which has been more focused on bits that atoms lately, but the … Continue reading →

When Jean-Louis Gassée has something to say, it is generally worth listening.  His take on a less HR-heavy performance review process is great reading, and he makes recommendations that most organizations could take to heart and apply. First, he quickly … Continue reading →

This PandoDaily post from Trevor Gilbert does as good a job as any article I’ve seen so far in describing WPEngine’s secret sauce: With the goal of becoming the one-stop shop for WordPress needs, the company has been steadily and … Continue reading →

Derek Anderson really hits the mark with his TechCrunch article, “Founders Are Not Heroes. Let’s Get Back To Work“… A few weeks ago a founder called me to commiserate. He told me about how his product had taken longer than … Continue reading →

There’s just something fascinating to me about these non-tech startups in Austin.  Not that they don’t use technology, and not that they aren’t innovative.  But that they aren’t selling “tech products”. The latest example is Margarita’s Tortilla Factory which is … Continue reading →

I don’t pretend to be an expert on culture. I subscribe to the adage of “knowing it when you see it.”  There are lots of people who are very intentional and deliberate about building culture at their firms.  And there … Continue reading →

In The Graduate, the way I remember one part of the movie was a friend giving the main character advice: Mr. McGuire: “I just want to say one word to you.  One word.” Ben: “Yes, sir” Mr. McGuire: “Are you … Continue reading →

Three bits of fundraising news hit the radar last week – Tabbedout raising $3.5M, and Biophysical Corp raised $4.2M. Meanwhile, Zilliant raised another $8M round from Main Street Capital. It appears the momentum in Austin for funding startups and small … Continue reading →

Author’s note:  I wrote this a while ago and put it on the back burner.  But in light of the recent articles about “having it all” – Why Women Still Can’t Have it All , and why there is no … Continue reading →

I read this article about the fallout for startups due to Facebook’s post-IPO stock performance: Paul Graham, cofounder of Silicon Valley’s most important startup incubator, Y Combinator, has sent an email to portfolio companies warning them “bad times” may be … Continue reading →

The Wall Street Journal published another article about college recruiting.  It seems to reflect how a lot of companies approach college recruiting and think about college recruiting.  And it is also, in my view, completely wrong.  Let’s touch on the … Continue reading →