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Welcome to SL #43! Recently, we got together with Gordon Rogers, the new President of the Atlanta Technology Angels (ATA), and had a great discussion about the current state of the Atlanta startup ecosystem, the angel investing landscape, and the merits of eating potato chips while trying to interview someone for a podcast.  This was our first ever “live” podcast, recorded on-location at 151 Locust, a hip new startup incubator here in Atlanta.

In addition to consuming copious amounts of “adult beverages” during the session (wheee!), we also discussed the now infamous Bresnitz paper, as well facilitating a lively Q&A session with the audience.

Banks go under the bus, and @Unblakeable comes with the smiley face on for a “Look Who Gets It” segment.  Another great selection of listener emails and a dash of StartupLounge humor to top it all off. Enjoy!
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Welcome to SL #42! Unless you’ve been under a rock for the past few weeks, you are no doubt aware that change is in the air down at the ATDC.  Stephen Fleming, recently promoted from his post overseeing Georgia Tech’s VentureLab is now the Vice Provost of the Enterprise Innovation Institute, and has folded VentureLab and the SBIR program into the new ATDC. Additionally, they’ve implemented a billion changes … and man, they’re good.  Stephen stopped by along with David Sung, who runs the ATDC Seed Fund, and we had a blast.  If you are an entrepreneur in Georgia, an investor that would like to gain a deeper understanding of these changes, you won’t want to miss this podcast.

We also dug up some old incriminating tape of Stephen sharing his true feelings on running VentureLab … a rare moment for sure – definitely tune in for that.  We also discussed the upcoming Venture Atlanta 2009 conference, and some of the new opportunities (and focus) on true early-stage companies.  Good stuff.

The good Mr. Blake suits up, takes the mound, and throws heaters at a a group of folks in Atlanta that just can’t seem to get with the program.  Another great selection of listener emails and a dash of StartupLounge humor to top it all off. Enjoy!

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Welcome to SL #41! Mike Schinkel was kind enough to ask us down to speak at the monthly gathering of the Atlanta Web Entrepreneurs (AWE) group.  Initially, we were going to host a panel on raising capital (or something similar), but after a few conversations, the three of us decided to change it up a bit.  We presented our view of the current state of the Atlanta startup scene, how far we’ve come in just a few short years, and where we think it is going.  We also issues a call to action to members of the Atlanta startup community to help us build what we call the “Atlanta Startup Cloud” – a virtual incubator.

Apologies to everyone for us going over our time limit.  We quite literally threw the presentation together a day or two before the event.  In retrospect, we probably could have done a better job in marrying our content to Schinkel’s schedule.  We will most likely have an initial meeting with all the volunteers, then have another community meeting which will be a *very brief* presentation of where the group is, and to solicit additional ideas and direction.  As Schink points out in his opening remarks, this particular meeting was just the first meeting of many, and will eventually involve a lot of other groups within the community (not just AWE). Read the rest of this entry »

 

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Welcome to SL #40! There have been a number of new venture funds cropping up in Atlanta lately, which is helping to propel Atlanta’s early stage scene.  One of those funds, Value Plus Ventures (co-founded by former Noro-Moseley partner Steve Nusrallah), has entered the market with a very unique, hybrid venture model.  There have been a lot of questions floating around about the viability and credibility of their model, so we invited VPV partner Lee Provow to come on and share their story.  We’re not big fans of the “consultative” venture model, but I’ll tell you, we were pleasantly surprised with what we learned.

Unblakeable brings the heat behind the wheel of the bus, this time knocking some pretenders silly.  And, to commemorate Memorial Day, Scott spontaneously bursts into song with an acappella stadium rendition of the Star Spangled Banner (yes, lol – that is really Scott singing – your call as to whether it is comedy, tragedy, or both). Another great selection of listener emails and a dash of StartupLounge humor to top it all off. Enjoy!

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Welcome to SL #39! In the spring of each year the StartupLounge crew packs up our studio and heads down to midtown Atlanta and records live on location at the ATDC’s yearly Entrepreneur Showcase event. This is always a wonderful event which features a new wave of graduating technology companies, and a new class of up and comers. This is our third year covering the event, and the energy this year was through the roof. Recorded live on-location at the Biltmore Hotel in downtown Atlanta, May 29th, 2009.
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