Awesome Blog

Awesome Inc Welcomes in the Team Alpha Spring Class of 2010

By Brian Raney

We don’t have interns at Awesome Inc. We have team alpha - a well oiled machine that knocks out todo lists quicker than Muhammad Ali can knock out Sonny Liston. They tackle assignments better than Ray Lewis tackled opponents in his prime. They throw down projects with more authority than Lebron James.

Unafraid of any task – from building sound proof rooms, to fixing ping pong tables, to dominating Google sketch-up, team alpha can and will do anything to make Awesome Inc more awesome.

This semester’s class is highly rated among startups nationwide. Allow me to introduce the Team Alpha Spring Class of 2010.

Leading the way is Therese Henrickson. Therese is in her 2nd term and is the captain of team alpha. Some people say they’ll take talent over experience any day. I say, “give me both”. Therese is an all star and will be responsible for three primary initiatives:

1. Managing the team

2. Awesome Space administration

3. Event Coordination

Ashley Williams is our other returning team alpha member. Ashley was our utility player last semester and will be taking on a similar role this semester with a focus on:

1. Awesome Space administration

2. Online and Offline purchasing

Coming in from the University of Kentucky Department of Communication is Bert Berry and Zach Magoto. Investors beware: this dynamic duo doesn’t take no for an answer. Bert plans to focus his semester on the following:

1. Organizing the creation of the Kentucky Entrepreneur Hall of Fame

2. Marketing Events

Meanwhile, Zach will be dominating these projects:

1. The creation of Awesome Media – the new media outlet for Awesome Inc

2. Awesome Space administration

Another University of Kentucky undergrad, Garrett Ebel, comes in standing 6’2” and weighing 175lbs. He was recruited to Team Alpha through Startup Weekend ’09. Garrett likes to play soccer, work with his hands, and enjoys long walks through the Awesome Space while listening to #3. Garrett has one goal for the start of his career at Awesome Inc – victory over the garage and its team of junk, filth, and disorder.

Two team members come from local high schools through a program called EBCE. EBCE stands for EveryBody Can Execute – and so that’s exactly what this crew does! Actually it stands for Experience Based Career Education but all that matters is that Matt Storrs and Desny Guerrier follow rule #22 – “go big or don’t be my friend”. Matt is spending his time on:

1. Entrepreneur Profile Wall – showcasing our rockstars including the likes of Steve Jobs (Apple), Larry Page and Sergey Brin (Google), and Jack Welch (GE).

2. Graphics Design

Desny has a niche focus on the arts and will be solely dedicated to making Awesome Inc more awesome looking by painting our logo all over the place and designing a giant mural for the art studio.

Our ace in the hole this semester is David McGee. David tweets like his life depends on it. Our online reputation lies in the hands of this young social media expert. His primary focus will be Awesome Inc’s online presence, more specifically:

1. Online Social Media for Awesome Inc – twitter, facebook, etc

2. Website Content

3. Building Community

No team is complete without a video highlights reel. That is where Walker Miller, Henry Clay High School senior, comes into play. Walker can simultaneously record a shoot, mix a soundtrack, and render transitions, all while making himself a sandwich. Walker’s primary focus this semester is to develop Awesome Inc’s video presence into something that Paramount Pictures will be begging to acquire within the calendar year.

Rounding up team alpha are three big names – two more from the University of Kentucky, Hilary Perrine, recent grad and Josh Strange, computer science genius and one from East Jessamine High, Madeline Knoblett. Hilary, Josh, and Madeline are focusing on the mobileX conference series and assisting with marketing, planning, and website development. They don’t let the fact that no one has ever pulled off five mobile conferences in a two month span in various cities throughout the Midwest before even phase them. They just execute. Period.

We have a don’t ask, don’t tell policy at Awesome Inc – don’t ask for extensions and don’t tell me any excuses. Its business 101 – keep a low FF (flakey factor) and a low SS (crap to substance ratio). It all goes back to rules #21 and #76.

So – if you’re part of team alpha, that means you’re launching a series of conferences, building a media conglomerate, inventing a hall of fame…or doing something else equally as Awesome. If you have the guts to follow rule #22 and are interested in being part of the team, we’re accepting applications at: http://awesomeinc.org/information/team-alpha/

Special shoutouts to last semester’s team alpha for creating the environment and culture that promotes excellence -
Eric Prince, Chase Bullock, Sarah Frank, and Simeon Kondev.

Rewarding Success & Celebrating Victory

By Luke Murray

andy1

Andy Cox manages our art gallery, fixes up our art studio, and is just an all around handyman. He is great! Andy's most recent project was to install a "Victory Bell" - an idea we got from Gray Construction - a local construction company here in Lexington that rings a giant bell mounted near the roof of their building at the closing of each contract...one ring for every million dollars the contract was worth. We decided this idea was awesome...so we replicated it for ourselves and put it in the same room as our failure dashboard.

andy-bell

Almost as important as encouraging failure is rewarding & celebrating success. Celebrating success is easy to do as long as you remember to do it. You don't have to mount a bell to a 4"x4"...just throw a party (or do whatever your company culture would consider 'fun').

Rewarding success, however, can be a little tougher because it typically requires more resources than taking an extended and festive break (aka. 'party'). Since Awesome Inc. isn't flush with cash right now (or really any other resource besides great people like Andy) we have to get creative in the ways that we reward success. Luckily we have found that most of the people that help out around here are happy and self-motivated by the intrinsic reward of doing something they consider awesome...and they stay that way. Lots of this has to do with the fact that this place is already filled with happy people, but the other part (we'd like to think) is that we've consciously made sure that those that did good work and/or succeeded in their endeavors were appreciated.

There are several ways in which you can 'positively motivate' people. In Jack Welch's book "Winning" he notes that the three main ways are: 1. Money 2. Training 3. Recognition/Reward. Some incentives (i.e. promotions) are a combination of both money and recognition. The more you are aware of what types of rewards motivate people, the more effective you can be with your resources to do so.

As I look back on the tools we've used to motivate people thus far, we really haven't used much of #1 or #2, and in the classic sense, we haven't done much with #3 either. I'd like to say that the main reason we have yet to use these tools as motivators is because we don't have the money to, but the more I look at it, the more I realize that we haven't done a very significant step. One of the most important things that needs to be in place before we can start rewarding people via #1, #2, or #3, or ringing our victory bell is that we have to have clear metrics/measurements of their success.

At Gray Construction it's very simple: One ring for every million dollars of a closed contract. At Awesome Inc. each person is working on a different project (The Interactive Touchscreen in Labs, The Awesome Inc. Experience, The Awesome Space, events, and then you have the individual companies) and while each company has clear goals and milestones, we have yet to pick which ones are important enough to be celebrated or rewarded with a party, a bell ringing, or anything else. We need to define 'celebratable' success for each department or project. Maybe we should only ring it for every million dollars we make as well? The point is we have to define which success should get celebrated before we can start throwing parties just yet.

Up to this point we have done a very good job with giving people recognition informally in weekly meetings, or giving small gifts or (and this is hands down the most important and most effective) being frequently and sincerely appreciative of people's help. But as we move forward, we need to crystallize our definition(s) of success so we can apply more principles of motivation to encourage it...and so do you, that is, if you expect to motivate your team towards awesomeness as well.

Just remember that when you do throw that party, follow rule #17...

"Bring the Fun"

How to Get People to Fail More

By Luke Murray catcher-fail

Winners are the ones who fail. Failures are the ones who never play. First, the best podcasts on entrepreneurship are the ones found at Stanford's Entrepreneur Corner, or e-corner (http://ecorner.stanford.edu/podcasts.html). Speakers for Stanford’s Entrepreneur Seminar Series include such high profile people as Carly Fiorina (former HP CEO), Steve Balmer (Microsoft CEO), and Mark Zuckerberg (facebook founder & CEO). However, one of the best talks I've heard in this series (and I've listened to at least half of the 100+ lectures) is by the director of the Stanford Technology Ventures Program - Tina Seelig. She teaches entrepreneurship at Stanford and gave a talk on how to do this well. The part from the lecture that stuck out to me the most was how much she encouraged failure. The ratio of your successes to failures is probably going to stay the same, so the path to more successes is more failures. The same is true in so many other things in life - the salesman with the most sales has probably been told 'no' the most, the baseball player with the most hits probably has the most strikeouts, the musician with the most hit singles probably has more "dud" songs than other musicians...and the person with the most successful company has probably had more failed companies and more failures within their current company than the person with the mediocre company. So, if failure is so important to success, then why don't people do it? The same reason they don't go skydiving or ride rollercoasters...the perception of danger. 99.99% of the time, going skydiving or riding in a rollercoaster will not kill you or even hurt you. But people see what could happen and this keeps them from doing it. To a much lesser degree, people don't embrace failure in life because of the perceived pain as well. Getting shot down by a girl at a bar doesn't actually physically harm you or put you in danger in any way. Neither does being rejected when selling a product, or putting together an event that nobody shows up to. It's just not worth the perceived danger or the damage to our egos or feelings. How do you fight this? How do you create a culture that embraces and celebrates failures? We don't know yet, but here at Awesome Inc. we must figure it out if we want to build a culture full of winners. This is what we've done so far: - Go Big Friday - fail big every Friday. The risk must have a massive potential upside for you and a very high likelihood of failure. It must be at least somewhat relevant to your personal goals (i.e. contact the president of the most successful company in town and ask to meet with them). Twitter hashtag: #gobigfriday. Website: www.throughfailure.com - The Failure Dashboard - a large whiteboard in the middle of our break room where you record your failure & the lesson you learned from it. Awards will be given monthly for the largest failure and the highest number of failures each month. What ideas do you have that would help create a culture that encourages trying new things and embraces failure as a tool to reach success?

Start-Up Slam: Six New Kentucky Companies by Lunch

By Matt McGarvey

That's right...six new innovation-driven Kentucky companies started by lunch. Not a bad morning’s work. Ten additional entrepreneurs signed-up for vouchers to start their company within the next 90 days.

This was the outcome of a Start-up Slam held in Lexington on Friday, November 20th at Awesome Inc. Start-up Slams are a new experiment of the Kentucky Science and Technology Corporation (KSTC) and its partners – the Cabinet for Economic Development’s Department of Commercialization and Innovation and the Council on Postsecondary Education…as part of an ongoing strategy to build new entrepreneurial companies in the State. Slams bring together entrepreneurs and business professionals in a high-energy setting to learn, network and start innovation-driven companies.

A similar event was held in October in Louisville at the Louisville Science Center and one is scheduled for Northern Kentucky on March 19, 2010 at NKU’s Center for Entrepreneurship. A potential 25 to 30 new companies could be started as a result of just the Louisville and Lexington events alone. Slams are now in the works for Eastern and Western Kentucky as well.

For additional information or to learn more about the Start-Up Slams, click here or contact Matt McGarvey at (859) 233-3502 ext. 240 or mmcgarvey at kstc.com.

Startup Weekend Lexington ‘09

By Brian Raney

Startup Weekend is coming to Lexington for the 2nd year in a row on Nov 20-22, 2009. Startup Weekend is a 54 hour startup event that provides networking, resources, and incentives for individuals and teams to go from idea to launch. It is all about building community, starting companies and ultimately following rule #22 – “go big or don’t be my friend”. Everyone who attends Startup Weekend goes big in the sense that they commit to making strides towards turning their idea into a company in less than three days. The event is intentionally limited in structure to allow for participants to spend most of their time “doing work”. The primary purpose of Startup Weekend is to DO SOMETHING. Spend very little time talking about your idea and most of the time doing something toward launching your idea.

There are two major benefits to attending Startup Weekend. First is the networking opportunity - You will meet local developers, innovators, business leaders, and entrepreneurs. Over the course of the three day event, meaningful relationships are built and valuable connections are made. The second benefit is to harness the power of community. We expect about 75 participants to attend Startup Weekend this year. So instead of working on your latest ground-breaking idea in the basement of your house, join a bunch of other like-minded individuals at Startup Weekend. For the same reason that people are more motivated while working out at a gym, participants at Startup Weekend reap the benefits of working among a group of other motivated individuals.

Startup Weekend was started in 2007 by Andrew Hyde. The program has traveled to over 52 cities and 12 countries. The program is now run by Marc Nager and Clint Nelson out of Seattle, WA. This year’s event in Lexington is part of Global Entrepreneurship week. Lexington is one of seven cities hosting a Startup Weekend during the weekend of Nov 20th.

Last year’s event had about 65 attendees and 8 companies were formed. One of those companies is called Uvestor. Led by John Williamson, Uvestor is a real estate communication platform where investors, real estate agents, brokers, and landlords can be connected instantly. Uvestor turned out to be such a success that John now runs the company full time.

Get more info at http://lexington.startupweekend.org

Event Details Date/Time: Friday, Nov 20 6pm – Sunday, Nov 22 7pm Location: Awesome Inc – 348 East Main Street, Lexington, KY 40507 Cost: $40, includes 7 meals and a t-shirt. Send me an email and I’ll get you a 50% off discount – brian at awesomeinc.org Register: http://lexington.startupweekend.org/tickets

Climate of Awesomeness

By Nick Such

Inventors, idea people, and entrepreneurs converged in Lexington this evening for the 5^th annual Inventors Conference hosted by the Central Kentucky Inventors Council (CKIC.org). The team from Awesome Labs stopped by to talk to gather feedback on the Interactive Touch Screen and our upcoming Engineering Entrepreneurship program. The folks from the CKIC did an excellent job of bringing together a host of local innovators. They showcased products ranging from innovative pet housing, to solar powered jackets, our friend Ken’s novel air purification system, Bill Cloyd's increasingly popular Newton's Attic program, and even the pre-collegiate stars of PLD Robotics.

The day began with an early morning at the Lexington Central Library. At 5:15am, about 15 exhibitors and CKIC members talked with Lee Cruse from LEX18 to promote the evening’s event. Everyone reconvened at 6pm, when Don Skaggs, President of the CKIC, kicked off the evening’s festivities with a video showcasing inventors and an introduction to the theme “Climate of Innovation”. This led into presentations from Nick with the Lexington Public Library and Gordon Garrett from the Small Business Development Center, culminating in the keynote address from Louis Foreman, renowned inventor and entrepreneur.

photo_101309_002

The conference’s common thread, as eluded to by “Climate of Innovation”, is that the recession environment is a great time to start a technology-based business. While this bodes well for Awesome Labs on the surface level, this assertion comes with a few cautionary notes:

1. Problem before solution. If there is no need for your product, you won’t succeed. Utilize free resources (like libraries, biz dev centers) for this research.

2. Revenue must exceed expenses. You will not survive if this fails.

3. Tailor your product to your customers. This means you must take the time to get to know your customers, and that you need to find a way for your customers to get to know your product.

While these are undoubtedly not original thoughts on the innovation commercialization process, it was helpful to have them laid out again. We inventors tend to fall in love with our ideas, while ignoring all the free resources we have available. The best (read: my favorite) advice of the night came via a video featuring the innovation manager from WD-40: failure is good. Accepting that one idea has failed means that you have gotten one step closer to success. It is far worse to deny failure, and attempt to follow through with a lousy idea.

So, here’s to failure, early and often, in the pursuit of Awesomeness.

Nashville Barcamp ‘09

By Luke Murray

Awesome Inc. is headed down to Nashville's Barcamp. "BarCamp is an ad-hoc gathering born from the desire for people to share and learn in an open environment. It is an intense event with discussions, demos and interaction from participants who are the main actors of the event." I'm pumped to see this 600+ person event in action and specifically the following sessions:

- Emerging Market: Vanity iPhone Apps for Small Businesses - Jackson Miller - #bcn09ivanity APAX Software, a company that works out of Awesome Inc. has been focusing on iPhone apps recently and has found many of their customers to be in this market of Vanity Apps. The trends Jackson sees on in this market will be beneficial to hear about.

- I AM MUSIC CITY: Entrepreneurship in Nashville - J. Tod Fetherling - #bcn09nashec As one of the people with his finger on the pulse of the entrepreneurial community in Nashville, we are really interested in learning from and taking advantage of the trends and ideas that Tod sees in building entrepreneurial communities and opportunities.

- State of the Community: The 'Venn Diagram' of Nashville's Tech Organizations - David Ledgerwood - #bcn09venn Like Tod's talk, this is something that will give us a good 'lay of the land'. I've ended up explaining this so many times that I've ended up making a chart along these exact lines for Lexington. Interested to see how they differ.

- Enterprise Lamp: The Next Frontier of Technical Depth In Nashville - Marcus Whitney - #bcn09elamp I heard about Marcus and what he's doing with Enterprise Lamp from Chuck Bryant, this year's Nashville Barcamp organizer, COO of Borderjump.us and Nashville Geeks.

- iPhone Development or "Welcome to Crazyville, Population YOU" - Nicholas Holland - #bcn09crazyville Nick came to Awesome Inc's Mobile miniConference this summer and we hung out again during Nashville Startup Weekend. His iPhone app Mobile Assassins was a year in the making so I'm interested to hear all the ups and downs he's experienced in the past twelve months. If it took that long to get this app in the store, he's probably faced every hurdle there is.

A Day at Cincy Coworks

By Luke Murray

On Tuesday I went up to Cincinnati for one of the first Cincy Coworks day of coworking. I realized the strength and vibrancy of the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky entrepreneurial culture a few weeks ago at In One Weekend, but I hadn't seen a semi-permanent gathering of people getting together to do their own thing...until now. I ended up at Venue 222 around noon, not knowing at all what I'd find.

I was quickly and pleasantly surprised to see art on the walls, a ping pong table upstairs, and a bunch of cool people doing awesome stuff. Here are just a few of them:

Gerard Sychay & Bill Barnett - These guys are the founders of Cincy Coworks - which right now is an occasional gathering of freelancers doing their own thing. Their "mission as a professional community hub is to transform how people in Cincinnati with ideas get together and make the region a better place to live." I got to sit on some bean bags with them for awhile and talk about...you guessed it....Awesome stuff! In this case that ended up being the visions we had for the things we were doing and why we were doing them. These guys are both trying to do something that will really benefit their community and they're doing it for the 'right' reasons. Hats off fellas!

Chris - After mentioning some of the things we're doing at Awesome Labs, Chris insisted that I check out a hackerspace close by called Hive13. Really cool looking place with some neat toys. Thanks for taking the time to drive me over there Chris!

Everyone that ever worked at zipscene.com - Actually I just met Colin. Gerard works there too, but I already told you about him ;)

Krista from Bootcamp Mobile (among other things) - Krista and I had already met a few times before, so it was a pleasant surprise to get to see her again. We connected first while I was reaching out to local mobile experts for the Mobile miniConference we had this summer, and then I got to hang out with her again at InOneWeekend.

There were plenty more people there, and overall the event was a huge success and a great time. Thanks Gerard and Bill and keep up the good work. Just don't forget Rule #4 - Always do something awesome over something not awesome!

Start a Business With 100+ People In 3 Days…

By Luke Murray

Last month I went to up to UC for a couple days to start a company. Yes...start a company in a few days...a weekend to be exact. Apparently, I'm not the only person crazy enough to do this - there were 100+ other people there that planned on doing the same thing. And, just to clear up some confusion: - No - We didn't know each other - No - We didn't know how we were going to make money - No - We didn't have a business plan - No - WE DIDN'T EVEN KNOW WHAT BUSINESS WE WERE GOING TO START

The only thing we all knew is that we were sure we'd have something by the end of the day on Sunday. Fortunately, Elizabeth Edwards (@eedwards), Bill Cunningham, Steve Boord, and Dr. Jeff Stamp had done this before last year. It was the second annual InOneWeekend event.

So how do you go about getting 100 people to make something from nothing in two and a half days? Well, I don't really know for sure, but I did learn this:

- Organized chaos is unavoidable and necessary.

I mean both words. Organized AND chaos. Jeff and Elizabeth had a "plan" throughout the weekend. It started with teaching, and then ideation, and then consistent updates on the project's progress. All weekend long we were trying to hit benchmarks and timelines. However, Jeff was careful not to make the decisions himself or to force us to do anything specific...which meant we spent A LOT of time not having a clue what we were going to do. I probably heard "I don't know what we're doing" about 1,428 times. The good part is that this confusion and lack of complete clarity didn't keep people from participating. The participation, of course added to the confusion and the chaos (if you add 100 people's two cents up, you've got more than pocket change...and a lot of pennies to count) but it ended up creating a REALLY well thought through idea. No angle hadn't been considered. So once we were able to go...we really took off, which made me realize...

- Deciding on what you are going to do is at least half the battle

We started thinking about ideas at around 6 or 7pm on Friday and still hadn't started "working" in the traditional sense over 24 hours later. We didn't even have a name until Saturday night. BUT once we did clarify what our idea was going to be (Dipidee - a last minute local deal finder for services - i.e. sporting events) we made an amazing amount of progress. The idea had been scrutinized and clarified so much that when all 100 people were cut loose to start working on it they knew exactly what they were working on. How far we got by Sunday was what really surprised me the most though...

- It's amazing what can happen when people set "unrealistic" goals

Yep, 100 people that didn't know each other or what they were going to do ultimately were able to put together thorough market research, financials, screen shots, basic back end functionality, a logo, and even a short commercial. It was impressive to say the least, and I really am glad that people like the folks at Neyer Holdings are out there encouraging us to do something we wouldn't have thought possible if we were doing it all by ourselves...especially not in one weekend.

So sign up for Dipidee to find out more about how this "experiment turned company" grows.

Dipidee - Jump on it!

http://www.dipidee.com/

The Idea Festival - What It’s ACTUALLY About

By Luke Murray

For three days every year, some of the most brilliant innovators in the world converge in Louisville, KY to attend The Idea Festival - a TED-esque conference that comes in the form of a series of lectures and performances by leaders in all areas of left and/or right-brained professions. I decided to join them this year to answer one seemingly simple question: "Why?"

Unfortunately, I found out very quickly that "Why?" was actually one of the most complex questions I could have asked. Each person I spoke to had a different answer. Some were from the University of Kentucky Gaines Fellowship Program or the UK Chellgren Undergraduate Fellows Program. Some of these students were simply there to broaden their perspective, while others had specific interests in a certain lecture as they pertained to research they were doing. The University of Louisville School of Medicine had several students attend as well. Some were attending as musicians interested in hearing Dr. Kogan - a world-renowned psychiatrist and pianist. Others were attending as clinicians hoping for a balanced life, wanting to hear how Dr. Kogan has successfully pulled off juggling two careers. The list, of course, goes on. There were several hundred people in attendance...I only got to ask thirty or so...

...But then there's the event organizers themselves. Kris Kimel of the Kentucky Science & Technology Corporation, the conference's organizer, often answers this "Why?" question with answers like: "to share ideas", "to make ideas open and available to people", "to make ideas open source". Hmm...no attendees talked like this?

At first glance it sounded like the reason people came to the conference and the reason the conference was put on were different. This is not unusual. Oftentimes people come together to make a transaction for completely different reasons. We go to McDonald's to buy a hamburger because we're hungry. The people that work at McDonald's are there to make you a hamburger because they want to make money - nothing wrong with that...because everyone ultimately gets what they want. However, in this case I found that the desires of the organizers and the attendees ultimately did come together if you asked "Why?" and listened long enough.

Why do the organizers put it on? So that people can share unique realizations (i.e. Dr. Kogan sharing his discovery that Tchaikovsky was most likely clinically depressed through studying his letters, journals, and music)...or not so unique realizations but from a unique perspective (i.e. A.J. Jacobs learning about the importance of focus by Unitasking for four months). Why do they want to do this? So that others can hear about them. Why do they want others to hear about them? Well that's where the desires of the organizers meet the motives of its attendees.

The Idea Festival is not about ideas.

Why do people show up? It's not simply to be exposed to a new thought, something they've never considered before. Yes, it's interesting to know that possums have 13 nipples (thanks Mr. Jacobs) but having this piece of knowledge shared with me isn't why Kris Kimel and his wonderful staff spend all year preparing for this event. The point of the Idea Festival is to create inspired ideas, that do teach us something but ultimately will change our behavior in a way that benefits the world.

Dr. Kogan played the piano beautifully and I was thoroughly interested in his stories about Tchaikovsky's personal, professional, and mental life, but what I ultimately took from his playing and his presentation is the realization and the intention that I too can choose to inspire, educate, and entertain the world in ways that "fit" my interests and talents - no matter how unique. Mr. Jacobs gave me the idea AND the inspiration to spend a month living with my grandparents, something I've always wanted to do but thought was too 'crazy' of an idea to try. After hearing about his experiences with living biblically for a year, reading the whole Encyclopedia Britannica, and becoming a woman - taking some time "off" with no other purpose but to learn didn't sound nearly as impossible or unreasonable.

An Idea doesn't make the world a better place and everyone that attends or puts on the Idea Festival knows that. But an idea coming from a person that embodies its principles can ultimately catalyze someone to take action on it in a way that motivates them to change their world. That's what the Idea Festival is ACTUALLY about. Unfortunately for me, the "Inspired Ideas Festival" doesn't have nearly as nice of a ring to it ;) <

Lessons From the First “Invention Saturday”

by Luke Murray

Last Saturday Awesome Labs had their first official event in conjunction with the Central Kentucky Inventors Council and Newton's Attic called "Invention Saturday". The idea was to build a Rube Goldberg machine in a single day, and it had its genesis from the concept of Startup Weekend, where a group of people get together and start a business in the course of a weekend. A little over a dozen people showed up on Saturday morning, ranging in age from 18 to 80 and after a breakfast of Dunkin Donuts, we got to work coming up with what the machine would do and the overly complex series of steps necessary to get it to accomplish this task. Eight hours later we were able to open a door and after six or seven crazy steps, turn on a light bulb. I learned a lot about physics and mechanical engineering that day but I also learned three important things about making ideas into a reality - whether it's a business, a Rube Goldberg machine, or a ground vehicle aerodynamic-enhancing truck modification (another current Awesome Labs project).

When it's low cost & low risk, pull the trigger before you're "ready". Brandon, one of the UK engineering students that participated in I.S. found some steel cage material and a ball and had the idea of putting in a 3-dimensional 'kerplunk' type apparatus similar to The Price Is Right game show. With those 2 objects he decided that was what he would build, and so he just started building. If he would have waited and planned out exactly all the materials he needed, he never would have finished it by the end of the day, because the way it had to interface with all the other things around it had not been determined yet (what would be directly before it? what would follow?). He had to continually adapt to what he was doing in order to make it fit everything around him. The same is true of any idea. Start working on it now and be ready to change the peripheral details about how you get it done...because those are always in flux.

Getting simple things done consistently is hard. Christopher and Andrew, two other UK students had a very simple idea: have a cylinder swing and knock a hammer backwards, and then have that hammer knock a ball over as it swung forwards again. Seems really easy, but getting this right took A LOT of tinkering, and if it didn't work it killed the whole machine right away...as it was one of the first steps. The lesson here is don't procrastinate on the 'simple' parts of your idea because you think they'll be easy and take no time. Odds are it will end up being much more difficult than you think. Old people + Young people = Awesome people. There is a lot of talk about how important diversity is and for the most part I disagree with it because when it's implemented, it is usually diversity for diversity's sake. However, when everyone is excited about working towards a common goal together, having a range of ages and experiences really comes out in how well things get done and the opportunity for teaching that goes on. Bill Cloyd, owner of Newton's Attic (a company that offers interesting educational experiences...like this one) was able to offer help and ideas to some of the engineering students there and the students were really glad to be surrounded by professional engineers, inventors, physicists, etc. The give and take was very apparent...not only in the moral but in the results.

So, in eight hours we pulled it off and made something really easy into something really complicated...but we also managed to learn the importance of an itchy trigger finger, the complexity of simplicity, and the importance of team diversity when trying to do something Awesome!

A Letter to the People of Columbus, OH

by Luke Murray

Dear Members of the Hi Tech, Creative, and Entrepreneurial Communities of Columbus,

I visited your fine city a couple weeks ago in order to attend an Innovation Series Event put on by Ben & Sandy Blanquera about Local iPhone and Mobile Innovation & Development . I'm planning on bringing a mobile phone technology conference to Columbus in January, so this seemed the perfect opportunity to meet the folks in the community that would know the most about this scene. Being that I own a collaborative workspace for engineers, artists, and entrepreneurs I also wanted to see what I could learn about those in your city that live at this intersection of technology, creativity, and startups. Often we become so accustomed to our own environments that we don't realize and appreciate their unique and admirable qualities. I've written this letter to remind you of these quirks and qualities of your great community.

The 'hotspots' of entrepreneurship in your community are simultaneously isolated and integrated. When I first arrived at the Dublin Entrepreneur Center (the DEC) I was surprised at how little there was surrounding it. It wasn't on or near a commercialized strip or even restaurants. At first this struck me as a particularly undesirable thing (since my organization - which is my only frame of reference - is on Main Street in downtown Lexington), but as I walked through the space and met some of the thriving companies inside, it began to make much more sense.

Parking was plentiful and not crowded, the lack of 'distractions' surrounding the building set it apart as a place where you come to do value-creating work, and the space inside allowed companies to move grow much more easily than if they were having to jump from one office to another around downtown.

Avitae, a startup that makes caffeinated water, took advantage of this exact situation and slowly expanded its operation one office at a time on the 4th floor until they had outgrown the remaining space on that floor and had to move...down to the 3rd floor. How convenient!

At the same time, despite this apparent 'isolation' when I walked inside the DEC there were people in your community working together openly and connecting with each other. I had no trouble meeting people, as many of them were coming up to introduce themselves to me (Kevin Dwinnell of Brand Thunder introduced himself to me right off the elevator)! Also, I quickly found out that not only were they physically connected in how everyone seemed to know everyone, they were also incredibly networked digitally. Super connectors like both Ben (@bblanquera) & Sandy (@sblanquera) Blanquera, as well as Rocky Vanbrimmer (@rockson), Jody Dzuranin (@jodyncolumbus), and Jon Myers (@jonmyers) are all connected via social media and seem to really be able to pull together a social gathering of any kind. Also, the physical layout of the community is connected to each other as well. I visited the TechColumbus incubator and the coworking spaces in the area and they all seemed to be right in the heart of the action.

The city is really supportive of what's going on financially and logistically. Willie Neumann's 14ninetytwo program (a ycombinator-esque bootcamp/investment fund for entrepreneurs in the mobile and/or web space) is being supported on all levels by local government and community members. At the event he talked about 14NinetyTwo's Weekend of Discovery that was scheduled to begin the next day and it sounded like he had put together a great program.

Your community is thriving, both in size and energy. The DEC is HUGE! The number of companies in there, the average size of companies, etc. are all impressive. Also, the number of places that house these communities is much larger than I realized. As I mentioned, I stopped by TechColumbus and all three coworking spaces in town on my visit. I spent a considerable amount of time at Sandbox with David Hunegnaw (@hunegnaw) and Tina Goodman (@tinagoodman) and was really impressed by their enthusiasm and genuine care for the creative and entrepreneurial community of Columbus as a whole (not just of their specific coworking space).

I also stopped by Indiehouse and Qwirk to see how they were setup. Everyone was very welcoming and it seems like the coworking 'environment' on a whole is rapidly trending upwards, as each shop has similar stories and timelines of growth.

The energy of your city also shows itself in the turnouts it has for its events. Jon Myers's launch party for his his company's first iPhone app Cornhole Allstars was well attended, and both Columbus Startup Weekend events had some of the highest turnouts I've ever heard. Hats off to all the people that have contributed to and been a part of this growing, welcoming, and energetic community. A special thanks to Ben and Sandy Blanquera, & Rick Copland for their help in making sure I was able to get as thorough picture of the Columbus technological, creative, and startup communities in 24 short hours!

- Luke Murray, Awesome Inc.

Rule #17 Bring the fun.

P.S. A blog summary of the Local iPhone and Mobile Innovation & Development event, as well as a video interview of Jon Myers, Adam Winter (Joe Metric - great idea, btw), and myself can be found here courtesy of Sandy. http://columbustech.blogspot.com/2009/08/local-iphone-innovation-cornhole.html

Forge Lexington

by Nathan Fort

Last Wednesday, Awesome Inc attended the second Forge Lexington event at Silvacola Farm, hosted by Lyle Hannah and his wife. For those who are not familiar with Forge Lexington, it is a networking event designed to bring together investors and entrepreneurs in the Lexington area.

The Silvacola Farm provided a nice relaxed setting to enjoy cocktails, excellent food, and priceless networking time with some of the most accomplished and esteemed individuals in the Bluegrass. The Forge community is represented by a wide diversity of individuals ranging from first time business owners to seasoned professionals.

Networking and great food aside, Forge invites a guest speaker to each event to give a brief talk about their achievements in business. For this event, Drew Curtis the founder of Fark.com was invited to speak. Curtis is the author of the Amazon bestseller, It's Not News, It's FARK: How Mass Media Tries to Pass off Crap as News.

Fark.com is a news aggregator and an edited social networking news site. According to the site, it receives 2,000 or so news submissions daily from its readership. The site was the first indie blogs to earn one million dollars a year in profit. Curtis has been featured in Business 2.0 and similar publications highlighting his success and accomplishments.

Despite the huge success of Fark.com, Curtis to this day lives and runs his business from Lexington, Ky. Curtis explained the cost benefit of living and working in Lexington versus relocating to the Valley or similar communities. Drew explained the importance of the community and its relaxed culture that surrounds business startups. He talked about the absence of this notion to "hurry up and fail" so that you can move on to your next venture. The culture in the Bluegrass allows you to take your time and grow your business at a much more relaxed pace.

Curtis went on to explain that Lexington really isn't as disconnected as people claim. If he were to receive a call at 7:30 one evening he could realistically be on the West Coast by the next morning for a meeting. The low cost of living in Lexington allows him to expand at a much greater rate for significantly less money.

Overall, one can conclude that the Bluegrass is a great place to start and maintain a business. The low cost of living and demand for innovative jobs allow entrepreneurs to expand their businesses and prosper much quicker than in most other regions of the country.

Forge Lexington truly is a unique gathering of entrepreneurs, investors, innovators, thought leaders and supporters of the entrepreneurial ecosystem. I urge any entrepreneurs or investors reading this blog to attend the next Forge event to discover its true value and worth.

Jump Off

by tim savage

Launching a brand is just like taking a leap of faith. No matter how much time you spend talking about how great it is going to be and the benefits for every one in the world, the brand still has to launch. I attend a church locally where my lead pastor has said “we are in the year of the jump”, meaning our church is going to grow fast with a new building addition. So a friend of mine (NateFX) and I followed that lead and coined the term “jump off” for launching a brand with a tag line of “might as well jump” (set to the Van Hallen song of the same name).

Nate and I came up with that on a phone call at about 10 pm in the middle of March and are now launching our first brand together. Through launching this brand we are actually launching a new business idea. This means there is beta testing and all the rest. It is a real fun time and a great time of anticipation for the success of this brand and business.

Take a look at this video page and see what a brand is doing with nothing but volunteers on the team and a paid person leading the charge. Anything can be done if you take a leap of faith.... might as well jump. :-)

http://www.vimeo.com/qpza

http://www.vimeo.com/qcc

Awesome Inc iPhone App released

The Awesome Inc iPhone app released to the app store on August 19th. Search keyword "awesomeinc" and download it for free. The app features:
- news/blog feed
- calendar of events
- Awesomecast
- Registration for the Awesome Community - sign up now to get details on what this will be in the future.

*** updates coming soon! ***

Awesome Inc visits Techstars

by Brian Raney

Last week several members of Team Awesome traveled to Boulder, Co to visit Techstars. For the unfamiliar, Techstars is a mentor-ship driven summer-long program in Boulder and Boston for entrepreneurs to accelerate their business. They select about 20 companies from all over the nation to participate in the program. About 500 apply. At the end of the program Techstars holds demo day. This is an opportunity for the companies to pitch to potential investors to raise their first round of funding…most of them succeed.

Luke and I attended demo day last year. This year seven entrepreneurs from Lexington attended. We watched the 10 teams pitch their ideas to hundreds of investors. All of the pitches were solid, but our top picks were Next Big Sound, Spry, Retel, & Take Comics.

Awesome Inc plans to do something similar to Techstars called the Awesome Inc Experience next summer.

While in Boulder we also attended a few social media gatherings, visited the Techstars facilities, climbed a mountain, and did “the thing” in downtown Denver (just ask if you need to know).

It was a great trip and I’m proud to be a part of Team Awesome. The seven of us that went on the trip and all the team members and supporters that we have in Lexington are a part of something big - something big that is changing the dynamics of the region and positively affecting the community and individuals. Thanks to everyone for their support. And thanks to Techstars for showing us what we have to shoot for.

Techstars demo day	Team Awesome - atop the mountain
Team Awesome - doing the thing	Team Awesome at Techstars - David Cohen, Brian Raney, Andrew Hyde, Luke Murray, Ryan Bright, Ryan Copple, Rachel Cunningham, Nathan Fort, Nick Such

Awesome Inc Mobile miniConference - Video

Prosper Media Group created a wrap-up video for the Mobile Conference from July 18. It's a great video, so check it out!

Awesome Inc Mobile miniConference - it’s a wrap

Thanks to all attendees, speakers, and volunteers. The conference was a huge success. View pictures from the event. If you attended the conference, please fill out our six question post-conference survey here.

Press Releases:

Ace Weekly - Techs in Lex
Fuel Your Apps - 9 Reasons To Attend an App Conference
Fuel Your Apps - Awesome Inc miniConference Recap
Amazing Aaron - YouTube Video
Business Lexington - Mobile media conference to help web developers

Nextingon 2

What's Next in Lex? On June 25th Awesome Inc hosted the second Nextington event. Nextington 2 featured presentations from the Kentucky Space Program, the 2010 Alltech FEI Equestrian Games, and the Legacy Trail.

Jason Falls & Social Media Explorer

Jason Falls, founder of Social Media Club Louisville, has posted a video walkthrough of Awesome Inc. Thanks a bunch for coming by Jason. We were glad to have you. Here's the link to the article: http://www.socialmediaexplorer.com/2009/04/07/building-community-for-startups-is-awesome-inc/ And the video:

New Awesome Inc website launches

featuring the following: - Events Calendar: stay up to date with entrepreneurial, high tech, and creative events in Lexington. - Awesome Cast: weekly podcast of what's new at Awesome Inc. - Company Profiles: see what start-ups are working out of the Awesome Space. - Pictures/Videos: Images and Video archives from previous events.

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