Wednesday, May 19, 2010 - Austin Texchange Title: If You Build It Will They Come?
Description:
Why do 65 percent of new products fail? In today's hyper-competitive market, companies too often misjudge demand. They either perform too little of the necessary market research, misuse the data they do collect, or neglect to integrate their research into product development.
Come hear Dr. Rob Adams talk about his new book, If You Build It, Will They Come? and learn about:
• The steps to quickly understanding the viability of your market
• Where to go to gather the information needed to hit market requirements
• How to follow through by launching the right product in the right way
Speaker:
• Rob Adams is an active investor, author, consultant, and on the faculty of the Management Department at the University of Texas at Austin’s McCombs School of Business, where he teaches in the MBA program and is the Director of the Global Moot Corp Program.
Panelists:
• Mark McClain Founder & CEO, SailPoint. Mark drives the vision and overall business strategy for SailPoint. Previously, he was founder and president of Waveset, where he helped establish the company's industry-leading position in the identity management space, including 250 percent revenue growth year over year for three years. Following the acquisition of Waveset by Sun Microsystems, Mark served as vice president of marketing for Sun software. He has diverse experience in international sales and marketing with Hewlett-Packard, IBM and Tivoli Systems.
• Neena Needel, Founder & CEO, Apply Genie. Neena co-founded ApplyGenie, Inc. in 2009 and serves as CEO and President. She has nearly fifteen years of experience in software development and management at successful Austin start-ups. Neena also created Point2Point Group, a strategic marketing consulting firm focused on product positioning and messaging strategies for early-stage and mid-market technology firms. With supporting education in Communication and Computer Science, Neena earned an MBA from the McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas at Austin with a concentration in Strategic Management and Entrepreneurship.
• Daniel Nelson, Founder, Phurnace (acquired by BMC Software). Daniel served as Vice President, Products and is one of the original founders of the company. He is responsible for all aspects of product management including innovation and product line expansion. Daniel has over ten years of experience in the software development field, eight of which are in senior management positions in operations, project management, and quality assurance at innovative early-stage software companies such as Isochron Data, drkoop.com, the Cobalt Group, NetObjects, and SurfWatch Software. Daniel has spent the last six years working specifically with Java EE™ technologies. Daniel has a B.A. and an M.B.A. from the University of Texas at Austin. His idea and business plan for Phurnace Software, Inc. won him the coveted Moot Corp. Award in 2006 from the University of Texas competition.
Wednesday, April 14, 2010 - Austin Texchange Title: Building a Culture: What Adjustments Do You Make As You Grow?
Description:
• Come join us as we hear from a panel that brings together entrepreneurs and executives who have been instrumental in defining and building their company cultures. We’ll hear from colleagues whose companies are at very differing points along the growth spectrum, from recently seed-funded (SpareFoot) to 20+ years of phenomenal growth (National Instruments) and various points in between (UShip and Breaking Point).
• John Graff, VP of Marketing, National Instruments since 1987 and is the vice president of marketing and customer operations. He received a bachelor‘s degree in electrical engineering from The University of Texas at Austin.
• Pam O’Neal, VP of Marketing, Breaking Point Systems, a network testing products provider and early success story in the use of social media and SEO for B2B Marketing. Pam has been involved in launching a number of B2B and B2C technology startups, four successful B2B blogs, and several growing tech communities. She co-authored the eBook Funnelnomics and her work has been recognized by MarketingSherpa, the Eloqua Marketer's Choice Awards, and most recently in the book Digital Body Language.
• Matt Chasen, CEO of uShip. As CEO, Matt leads uShip’s executive team in the company’s mission to create the most efficient marketplace for shipping that has ever existed. Prior to founding uShip, Matt spent five years in business development at The Boeing Company in Seattle, WA. Matt attended the McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas at Austin where he earned his MBA in May, 2004. In addition to his MBA, Matt has a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering from The University of Texas at Austin.
• Chuck Gordon, CEO of SpareFoot. Chuck started SpareFoot while attending UCLA and moved out to Austin to grow the company, which is now the leading online marketplace for self-storage.
• Mark McClain, CEO of SailPoint. Mark drives the vision and overall business strategy for SailPoint. Previously, he was founder and president of Waveset, where he helped establish the company's industry-leading position in the identity management space, including 250 percent revenue growth year over year for three years. Following the acquisition of Waveset by Sun Microsystems, Mark served as vice president of marketing for Sun software. He has diverse experience in international sales and marketing with Hewlett-Packard, IBM and Tivoli Systems.
Discussion Leaders:
Jim Brown, Entrepreneur and Investor
Matt Chasen, CEO, U-Ship
Sam Decker, CMO, Bazaarvoice
Mario Feghali, COO, Sparefoot
Morgan Flager, Silverton Partners
Chuck Gordon, CEO, Sparefoot
John Graff, VP Marketing, National Instruments
Tom Inman, Gefinor Ventures
Sherry Marcus, CEO, 21st Century Technologies
Mark McClain, CEO, SailPoint
Dan Meyer, Partner, SR Funds
Mickey Millsap, CEO, Givability
Pam O’Neal, VP Marketing, Breaking Point
Steve Wagh, Investor
Wednesday, February 17, 2010 - Austin Texchange Title: “Crowdsourced: CEO Panel”
Description: This Texchange meeting will be like no other Texchange event you've attended. As an attendee, you will set the questions and agenda in our first "crowdsourced" panel event.
For our panel, we've assembled an incredible group of CEO's that you will rarely find on the same stage. Together they represent Austin-based transactions exceeding half a billion dollars.
Panelists:
• Joel Trammell, CEO of NetQOS who sold his company to Computer Associates for $200M in cash.
• Rod Favaron, CEO of Lombardi Software recently sold the company to IBM for an undisclosed amount. The company has 200 employees with 120 of them being in Austin.
• Craig Malloy, CEO of LifeSize Communications which sold to Logitech for $405M.
Discussion Leaders:
Dr. Gary Cadenhead, Director of the MSTC (Master of Science in Technology Commercialization) Program at IC2
Jay Campion, Partner at Access Venture Partners
Aruni Gunasegaram, ATI
Laura Kilcrease, Triton Ventures
Hall Martin, Austin Entrepreneur Network
David Ryan, CEO of Navigo
Melissa Simpler, CEO of Affinegy
Rick Timmins, Partner at G51 Capital
Ed Trevis, CEO of Corvalent
Steve Wagh, Investor
Larry Warnock, BMC
Wednesday, January 20, 2010 - Austin Texchange Speaker:Sharon Drew Morgan, New York Times Best Selling Author
Sharon Drew Morgen is the visionary and thought leader behind Buying Facilitation®, the new sales paradigm that focuses on helping buyers manage their buying decisions. She is the author of the New York Times Business bestseller Selling with Integrity as well as five other books and hundreds of articles that explain different aspects of the decision facilitation model that teaches buyers how to buy.
Morgen dramatically shifts the buying decision tools from solution-focused to decision-support. Sales very competently manages the solution-placement end of the decision, yet buyers are left on their own while sellers are left waiting for a response, and hoping they can close. But no longer: Morgen actually gives sellers the tools to lead buyers through all of their internal, idiosyncratic decisions.
Morgen teaches Buying Facilitation® to global corporations, and she licenses the material with training companies seeking to add new skills to what they are already offering their clients. Her new book, Dirty Little Secrets: Why Buyers Can’t Buy and Sellers Can’t Sell and What You Can Do About It, defines what is happening within buyer’s cultures (systems) and explains how they make the decisions they make.
Morgen has focused on the servant-leader/decision facilitation aspect of sales ever since her first book, Sales On The Line, was published in 1992.
In all of her books, she unmasks the behind-the-scenes decisions that need to go on before buyers choose a solution and gives sellers the tools to aid them.
In addition, Morgen changes the success rate of sales from the accepted 10% to 40%: the time it takes buyers to come up with their own answers is the length of the sales cycle, and her books—especially Dirty Little Secrets—teaches sellers how to guide buyers through all of their decisions, thereby shifting the sales cycle from a failed model that only manages half of the buying cycle, to a very competent professional skill set.
Morgen lives in Austin TX, where she dances and works with children’s fund raising projects in her spare time.
Description:
You have great sales skills. Your product is great. What is stopping you from closing all of the sales you should be closing? (Hint: It's not you, and it's not your product.)
The sales model is broken.
Conventional sales models do not help buyers manage the behind-the-scenes issues they need to address before they can make a buying decision. And by not helping buyers buy, these models get in the way of sellers selling.
Sharon Drew Morgen is changing the landscape of sales with her new sales paradigm, Buying Facilitation®. Come listen to Morgen talk about Buying Facilitation® and learn:
• How buyers really buy;
• How sales prevents you from efficiently helping buyers;
• New skills you can use to help buyers make buying decisions.
Discussion Leaders:
Tom Francese, SVP Business Development, Virtual Bridges and former VP of Europe, Middle East and Africa, IBM Software Group
Curtis Gattis, Sales and Business Development Executive
Cindy Goldsberry, VP of Sales, Boundless Network
Jim Gray, BridgeOne Global Solutions
Peter Hagerty, Senior Director of Sales, Yahoo, Inc.
Derek Hutson, SVP of Sales and Marketing, Hart InterCivic
Tod Klubnik, SaaS Sales Management, Dell
James Rogers, VP of Sales and Marketing, Gravitant Software
Alex Shootman, SVP of Worldwide Sales, Eloqua
Baron Unbehagen, SVP of Sales, S1 Corporation
Tory Upchurch, VP of Sales, OneSpot
Wednesday, October 21, 2009 - Austin Texchange Title: Achieving Social Media Success: Case Studies of Business Results
Speakers: Sam Decker, CMO, Bazaarvoice
Joshua Baer, CEO, OtherInbox, Co- Founder, Capital Factory
Description:
Recent studies suggest 300 million people are on Facebook. And then there’s YouTube, Twitter, LinkedIn, Blogs, Reviews, and other Social Media. Whether B2B or B2C, social media does influence your business because it influences everyone’s lives. And it’s not going away. So, how do you use these tools to promote your company or yourself, and integrate it with your existing marketing activities.
This event will share real life examples of how social media is used in three business. Learn how Bazaarvoice (B2B) has leveraged blogging, viral YouTube videos, Twitter, and Facebook to help grow to over 500 clients. Learn how OtherInbox (B2C) uses Twitter to turn its biggest complainers into its biggest champions. Learn how these tools also helped Capital Factory recruit 300 entrepreneurial applications and 250 attendees to Demo Day.
Also, leading up to this event (if you didn’t notice already), social media will be used extensively to promote the event and Texchange. We will take you through the strategy, tactics and measures used to promote our very own Texchange. This is the one social media "bootcamp" that you and your executives should attend. (Follow @Texchange on Twitter now!)
Discussion Leaders:
Joshua Baer, OtherInbox
Bart Bohn. ATI
Randall Crowder, Central Texas Angel Network
Sam Decker, Bazaarvoice
Amy Hawthorne, ReachForce
Rod MacDonald, Daylight Partners
Bryan Menell, Capital Factory
Stefanie Nelson, Dell
Steve Odom, ge.la.to
Michael Osborne, Bazaarvoice
Elizabeth Quintanilla, Hispanic Chamber of Commerce
David Ryan, Navigo
Chris Shonk, Liahona Ventures
Wednesday, September 16, 2009 - Austin Texchange
Title: New Models for Venture Acceleration
Panelist:
Rob Adams Director of Moot Corp at The University of Texas at Austin
Kevin Koym, General Partner, Tech Ranch Austin
Bryan Menell, Managing Director, Capital Factory
Moderator: Jonas Lamis, General Partner, Tech Ranch Austin
Description:
Traditional funding strategies for startups have changed dramatically over the past several years. Today, companies likely must have product and customers before they are able to raise venture funds. And many more startups are embracing alternative models for venture launch and acceleration.This shift creates opportunities for new incubators like Tech Ranch Austin and Capital Factory to provide low cost and high value mentorship models to the startup community.
Come learn from the executives behind these programs and join us in a discussion about models for accelerating entrepreneur success in Central Texas.
Discussion Leaders:
Rob Adams, MOOT Corp
Isaac Barchas, Austin Technology Incubator
Tina Cannon, PetzMD
Ken Cho, Social Agency
Erin Defosse, Austin Technology Incubator
Chuck Gordon, SpareFoot
Russell Hinds, Capital Factory
Rob Hirschfeld, Zehicle
Kevin Koym, TechRanch
Jonas Lamis, TechRanch
Bryan Menell, Capital Factory
Arvin Poole, SHAARP Ventures
Chris Treadaway, Notice Technologies
Wednesday, June 03, 2009 - Austin Texchange Title: The Lean Startup: A Disciplined Approach to Building New Companies
Panelist: Eric Ries
Description:
The current macroeconomic climate presents unparalleled opportunities for those that can thrive with constrained resources. The Lean Startup is a practical approach for creating and managing a new breed of company that excels in low-cost experimentation, rapid iteration, and true customer insight. It uses principles of agile software development, open source and web 2.0, and lean manufacturing to guide the creation of technology businesses that create disruptive innovation.
This presentation will empower entrepreneurs and managers to:
• Identify a profitable business model faster and cheaper than your competitors.
• Continuously discover what customers want to buy before building or making follow-on investments in new features.
• Ship new software at a dizzying pace: multiple times a day while improving quality and lowering costs.
• Build a company-wide culture of decision-making based on real facts, not opinions.
In this presentation, serial entrepreneur Eric Ries will share practical solutions based in his work building IMVU to more than 25 million members worldwide and his experiences consulting to more than a dozen technology startups.
Discussion Leaders:
Isaac Barchas, ATI
Bart Bohn, ATI
Sam Decker, Bazaarvoice
Bril Flint, IdealFlow, Inc.
Chuck Gordon, Homstie
Aruni Gunasegaram, ATI
Jessica Hanover, ATI
Craig Harris, Wild Basin Investments
Rob Hirschfeld, Zehicle
Jeff Hoogendam, 360 Partners
Martin Jacobvitz, Central Texas Business Consulting Alan Knitowski, Phunware Inc.
Kevin Koym, TechRanch
Jonas Lamis, TechRanch
Bryan Menell, Capital Factory
Arvin Poole, Investor
Chris Treadaway, Notice Technologies
Dave Wilkinson, Initiate Systems
Wednesday, April 15, 2009 - Austin TeXchange Title: The Changing Financial Landscape
Moderator: Bill Morrow, CEO, CSIdentity
Panelists: Josh Baer, CEO, OtherInbox
Mike Dodd, Venture Partner, Austin Ventures
Neil Randall, Principal, Teachers Retirement System of Texas
Description:
The credit markets are frozen and the venture capital world is no different. Venture capital investments in Q4 2008 fell 26% from the previous quarter, and it appears that Q1 2009 will be worse. Venture Capitalists, Angels, and the limited partners who invest in VC funds are holding their cash tightly and are bracing for an environment that will be challenging for the foreseeable future. The following questions were answered during the event -
• When will the money flow freely again?
• What will the new financing landscape look like?
• Who will be successful in this new landscape?
• What can my company do to prepare itself for this new landscape?
Wednesday, February 18, 2009 - Austin TeXchange Topic: The Goals of Sales and Marketing In Good Times and Bad
Moderator: Mark McClain , CEO, Sailpoint
Panelists: Chris Warwick , VP Marketing, Hoovers
Jim Currie , VP Sales, Innography
Doug Miller , CMO, Innography
Description:
In good times and bad, the goals of sales and marketing should be identical: To get new customers, and to retain and grow current ones. Unfortunately, the reality of the relationship between the two functions in many organizations often ranges from strained (at best) to working at cross purposes.
However--in a down economy especially!--it is critical that sales and marketing work together to be focused on the REAL goal: winning customers and driving revenue as efficiently as possible. This panel shared best practices for aligning marketing and sales and best practices on how the two groups can work together to create a "1 + 1 = 3" formula for delivering revenue.
The panelist discussed the following questions:
• What is the relationship between marketing and sales?
• How does the company decide on investments between marketing and sales?
• How do marketing and sales work together to set the proper foundation for systematic demand creation?
• How efficiently are leads and opportunities converted through the stages of the sales funnel?
• What creative strategies and tactics have been initiated to compete for sales in this tough economy?
• How can a "single lens" be used to set goals and define success and failure for marketing and sales?
Wednesday, January 21, 2009 - Austin TeXchange Topic: Managing Culture during Hard Times
Description:
Central to the success of Southwest Airlines is the Southwest Way, a unique culture that puts employees first. The culture is rooted in the theory that empowered, motivated employees will satisfy customers who will support a profitable business. The results are proven; Southwest leads the airline industry in employee retention, customer satisfaction and profitability.
This lively town hall style event was interactive and informative from beginning to end.
