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).

This edition of the StartupLounge.com podcast is actually a screencast/video.  You can use the links below to view.

In short, our Startup Cloud concept is an effort to address provide several key services to the community:

1. Provide a “jumpoff” point – where new entrepreneurs and investors can “get plugged into” what is happening within the Atlanta early-stage scene.
2. Provide better event coordination between the bazillion startup groups in Atlanta – i.e. shared calendar .. yay!
3. Provide a “virtual incubator” whereby the community incubates itself
4. Provide a vehicle to bridge into the corporate world, to bring Atlanta’s corporate players to the table to look at the innovations that are happening here (side note: Since this meeting, we’ve made some progress on this front – looks like we have quite a number of Fortune 1000 companies already interested in hosting events and playing an active role in this).

This was a platform that we started building about a year ago, but as we mention in the presentation, it will take us 20 years to finish the thing given our current schedules.  So, we decided that opening up the initiative to the community is an even better way to go – more hands involved, and more importantly, additional voices and input.

Oh, and for the person who emailed me about the “Boss Hogg” slide – the three personas illustrated are not a reference to anyone specifically, but rather stereotypes that we’ve all come to know and love.

Unfortunately, our A/V guy had to leave the event after the break, so we were unable to record the audio Q&A session at the end.  Which is probably a good thing, because some of it went a bit tangential.  But we did take copious notes, so we’ll be putting something up online soon.

At the end of the day, we pitched a very abstract concept, and managed to get an absolute boatload of people to sign up to volunteer to pitch in and help with the project.  Since the night of the AWE meeting, we’ve since reached out to some of our VC and startup contacts in North Carolina, and they are interested in simultaneously launching the Startup Cloud concept in North Carolina as well.

We have been woefully behind in our reaching out to those who have volunteered to help.  Thanks for your patience!

More soon …

Enjoy!

Join us for a great chat about the inner workings of the entrepreneurial mind!

As usual, we throw some more folks “under the bus” in true StartupLounge.com fashion. Bringing you truth, justice, and the American way, baby!

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Shownotes:

This was a wonderful discussion that provided a lot of insights into how the entrepreneurial mind works, and what tends to separate those successful entrepreneurs from the ones who end up as disgruntled middle managers in someone else’s empire. Discover the inner workings of the FFM (Five Factor Model) for analyzing those personality traits (Openness, Conscientiousness, Emotional, Agreeableness, and Social/Extroversion.) You’ll also enjoy the conversation around how early stage companies can use certain metrics to identify those individuals that make for good critical first hires. Oh, and what about the spousal side of things?

Sampling of Soundbytes:

Before we get onto the pro forma questions that at least ostensibly have something to do with entrepreneurship, the real thing we’re all interested in is .. what’s wrong with Scott?

You find that successful entrepreneurs tend to be more stable. When you look at their ability to handle stress, they are well constructed from an emotional standpoint to be able to weather those storms.

If they don’t achieve their goals, they’re not very agreeable.

With regard to extroversion, research has shown no difference between an entrepreneur and a regular business person.

There are some core characteristics that appear to make up the successful entrepreneur … these characteristics are more extreme than they are in most normal people.

A strong personality trait means you are going to have pluses and minuses. Those minuses often show up in social interactions.

I was young and needed the money.

I wouldn’t go so far as to say the entrepreneur is cavalier, but they are more likeley to see the upside of an idea, rather than the downside.

The amusement park analogy: the spouse who thinks they are getting on a bumper car ride all of a sudden winds up on Space Mountain, and they didn’t realize it. That’s a different experience.

We all struggle with balance in life, whether we’re entrepreneurs or not, but entrepreneurs have a partciularly difficult problem with that, because they are absolutely consumed by what they are doing.

A lot of VCs, contrary to what you might think, are often slow to make people changes.

Of course, there is much more content contained within the show itself. Enjoy! To play it, use the tools at the top of this post – you can play it via the embedded Flash player by pressing the big play button at the top, or download it to play on your computer or MP3 player.

Links referenced within this episode:

• Management Psychology Group
  
• Adams Capital
• PeachPodStudios
• National Personnel Services
• SON Capital
• Technology Association of Georgia

Podsafe music used within this episode:

• Sundial by Bill Derome
• Lullaby for Lawyers by Steve Newman
• All the Money in the World by Hutch

Tune in and find out!

Our format is a little out of the norm as far as podcasts go. We treat our efforts as a true “show” rather than a super-concise (limited) vehicle for delivery of information. Therefore, the podcasts can run a bit long. While we try to have very substantive discussions, we also try to have a lot of fun along the way (and that tends to elongate the programming a wee bit.) Our theory is that if we are having fun during the show, hopefully, you will be having a little fun listening as well.

Here is the breakdown for the show, in case you want to hop around.

A special thanks to Doug for coming in and hanging out with us!

We’ll be back soon with Joey Silver and Doug Spear with DLA Piper. In addition to chatting about what they see in the Atlanta early-stage market, we’ll be discussing some legal basics for startups.

We welcome your continued feedback as well! If you have an interest in appearing on the show, becoming a show sponsor (hint, hint), have some suggestions for topics, have feedback, or would just like to email us and tell us to “shove off”, we invite you to contact us.

And don’t forget – the StartupLounge.com message forums are up and running. If you need help with any aspect of your venture, we welcome you to jump in and get the help you need!

Enjoy!