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Automated Insights Launches SiteAi to Deliver Instant, Personalized Website Analytics Reports
Why This is Only the Beginning
Published at ExitEvent
5.21.13
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 This morning, Automated Insights released SiteAi, a product that automatically and seamlessly combs through all of your website analytics data and emails you a daily or weekly report on your traffic -- the volume, the makeup, the sources, the changes, the trends, and any other nugget we can pull out of the muck. We take all of these insights, prioritize them, and send them to you in plain, pretty English.
I'm in charge of Product at Ai, and as such I'm compelled to come up with several new ways to use our platform that our potential customers aren't yet clamoring for. This is not as easy as it sounds, because our potential customers clamor for a lot -- from our sports and fantasy knowledge to our financial products to real estate and personal fitness.
These days, if you can dream it, it most likely has data, and we can mine that data and report on it in any format you want. We can make it read like it was written by Bill Simmons or Bill Shakespeare, and we can crank out personalized articles at the rate of (so far) up to 1,100 articles per second.
read the rest at: http://exitevent.com/automated-insights-launches-siteai-to-deliver-instant-personalized-website-analytics-reports-13521.asp
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Durham's Mystery Brewing goes for $50,000 on CNBC's Crowd Rules
Published at WRAL TechWire
5.21.13
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 DURHAM, N.C. — If you read me, you know I never do this, but I've known Mystery Brewing's Erik Myers for 12 years, and I thought the best way to talk about his appearance tonight on CNBC's Crowd Rules, where he will compete with other entrepreneurs for a $50,000 prize, would be to give you the conversation, verbatim, as we had it.
I could give you my opinion. I could tell you about how awesome Erik is as an entrepreneur, how he brought so many aspects of tech entrepreneurship to building what is now a very successful brewery, or what he's learned along the way, but I'm hoping you'll actually watch the show and find out about all this for yourself.
Could Erik have built Mystery Brewing outside of Durham? Probably. His brewery and brewpub are actually 20 minutes away in Hillsborough. But he and his wife Sarah live in Durham and Erik is immersed in the startup community there. He's also the author of North Carolina Beer and Breweries (Blair), which took him across North Carolina to investigate the scene and all it has to offer. One more: He's the Vice President of the North Carolina Brewers Guild.
Erik built Mystery like a tech startup, raising $50,000 on Kickstarter and another $250,000 in private seed money. He blogs, he markets well, and he's everywhere -- and in that, Mystery Brewing and companies like it deserve to be in the same sentence as Triangle Startup Factory graduates, NC IDEA winners, and, you know, all those other startups from Durham that landed on a CNBC reality show.
Joe: OK, so it's pretty amazing and somewhat surreal that you're going to be on a reality show Tuesday night.
Erik: (Laughs) That's one way to put it. It doesn't feel very real. It's so far outside of normal every day experience and the entire thing happened very quickly. Tuesday night will probably be really strange.
read the rest at: http://wraltechwire.com/durham-s-mystery-brewing-goes-for-50000-dollars-on-cnbc-tonight/12469296/
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Watch Mystery Brewing Tuesday Night on CNBC's Crowd Rules
ExitEvent Beer Donor Goes From KickStarter Campaign to Reality TV Sensation
Published at ExitEvent
5.20.13
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 I'm not gonna lie to you. As media-savvy as I like to believe I am, it still feels weird watching the promo video (below) and seeing my friend on a reality show. I've known Erik Myers, founder of Hillsborough's Mystery Brewing, for a little over 12 years, since before he moved from Boston to Durham, long before he decided to ditch his job as a network admin and turn what was essentially a hobby into a full-fledged, real-as-hell, building, employees, T-shirts-and-taproom brewery.
When I met him, he was just a really smart and funny kid who could write well and dug all the same kinds of things I did. I hired him to write for Intrepid Media, and a few years later he married his girlfriend and moved to North Carolina so she could get her doctorate at UNC.
One night in 2011, just as Erik was finishing up his paperwork to make Mystery legal, I explained the idea for ExitEvent and the Startup Social over beers at City Beverage, and he went all in. ExitEvent has served phenomenally good Mystery Brewing beer, for free, at each of our 18 Startup Socials. To hundreds of influential entrepreneurs and investors from across the country. Because dude had vision.
I should say this too. Erik was one of the first people I told about ExitEvent. Before he said he'd pour the beer, he told me he thought it was a great idea. Had he said otherwise, I may not have done it.
This Tuesday night, Mystery Brewing is one of the featured contestants on the CNBC reality show Crowd Rules, which each week features three small businesses that compete for a $50,000 prize.
read the rest at: http://exitevent.com/watch-mystery-brewing-tuesday-night-on-cnbcs-crowd-rules-13520.asp
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Called It! WedPics Raises an Oversubscribed $1.1 Million Round
You've Come a Long Way, Justin
Published at ExitEvent
5.16.13
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 It seems like ages ago when Justin Miller's dejaMi was getting booted from his basement, thanks to an overzealous neighbor and a City of Raleigh ordinance that went to the letter of the law. The local startup community came together to help him land at HUB Raleigh overnight, and from there, he's been on a tear.
But know this. Every time he calls me, I answer: "What did you get kicked out of now?"
That joke will never, ever get old.
It was even longer ago, July of 2011 to be exact, when Miller threw the impressive dejaFest to launch the original dejaMi app. Not a task taken lightly, it turned into a full-on 2-day music festival, taking up several venues in downtown Raleigh.
Not long after he relocated to the HUB, he and I were both at Startup Summit, where I was moderating a panel and he was pitching WedPics, the company he spun out of dejaMi and into the early but suddenly very frothy social-wedding-sharing space.
Watching his presentation, I knew at that point that WedPics was going to be successful, because Miller was going to beat everyone at the game. WedPics was going to be designed better, work better, and if he had to throw a WedFest to get it onto the public's radar, that was going to happen.
read the rest at: http://exitevent.com/called-it-wedpics-raises-an-oversubscribed-11-million-round-13516.asp
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Why Startups Need Ping Pong
The May ExitEvent Startup Social Recap... Sort Of
Published at ExitEvent
5.15.13
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 People constantly ask me how I manage to fit a full-time life at a VC-backed startup pioneering the new science of extracting personalized human-sounding narrative from big data, a 1000+ strong network of entrepreneurs and investors complete with daily content and monthly events, and -- oh yeah -- a family of five, which includes twin girls and full-on little league schedule for the boy, who is a left-handed switch hitter.
Lottery ticket!
I have a list of stock brush-off answers:
Cloning.
The 25th Hour.
Freemasons.
The startup or the network or the family are a complete fabrication.
The truth is, I've learned how to maximize my time.
This isn't about brushing my teeth while helping a daughter with her homework while texting with Robbie while writing this article. I mean, I did that, but when I say time management, I'm talking about using time in the most efficient manner possible.
It's not multi-tasking, it's brain-shifting.
For example, I write most of my columns and articles in about 15 minutes. I sit down in front of my laptop and I pretend I'm writing an email just to you. Yes you. I'm stalking you. I'm lucky that this is the style that has found me. I could give a shit about making my stuff sound like all the other stuff.
read the rest at: http://exitevent.com/why-startups-need-ping-pong-13515.asp
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Smoffice, Durham, Klein Win Big
Published at News & Observer
5.13.13
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Thanks to its startup community, Durham is a world champion.
In April, the Durham Chamber of Commerce took the prize for the Most Unconventional Economic Development Project award at the World Chambers Congress in Doha, Qatar.
The win was for the Smoffice (World's Smallest Office), a six-month experiment in 2012 that gave a startup – the Makery – office space in the front of downtown Durham's Beyu Caffé. The deal included a free downtown condo, technology, mentoring and other resources in return for a very public incubation.
This is not some trivial award. In 16 years of the international competition, no U.S. community had ever won. And of the more than 70 communities competing this year, Durham was the only U.S. finalist.
“We were the only Americans out of 2,200 attendees,” said Adam Klein, chief strategist at American Underground, Durham working spaces where entrepreneurs learn from and brainstorm with one another. “We were underdogs. Most Chambers around the world act more like Commerce departments, they have huge budgets and are nationalized.”
Klein and I first discussed the Smoffice in its idea stage in early 2012.
As a publicity stunt, it was spot-on. As an incubator, the Smoffice was a big risk.
It was a very public attempt in a crowded field that, at the time, included accelerators Launchbox/Triangle Startup Factory, Groundwork Labs, Joystick Labs, Startup Stampede (Klein's other brainchild), and others.
The question now becomes, will there be a Smoffice II, or something like it?
read the rest at: http://www.newsobserver.com/2013/05/13/2890085/column-smoffice-durham-klein-win.html
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Four Reasons Why Monday Might Be the Last ExitEvent Startup Social
You Never Know
Published at ExitEvent
5.10.13
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 If you're an entrepreneur or an investor, I gently implore you to go here and RSVP for Monday's ExitEvent Startup Social. And please show up, drink the free, locally-brewed craft beer, talk to your peers, and play or watch people play ping-pong for the glory of your or their startup.
That's really all you have to do. And it's all free. And it could be the last time.
Not really. But you never know. We are taking June off, there's just too much going on next month in startup-land. So this will be the last one for a little while. And that got me thinking: When is this going to end?
1) The Mission is Accomplished.The mission is to help create a stronger environment (not ecosystem, not community) for startups. I want to do that by giving you news, opinion, viewpoint, resources, and connections in a real-world and digital environment that you can't find anywhere else.
(Motivation? No. If you don't have motivation, you probably shouldn't be an entrepreneur until you find the idea that motivates you.)
So there's still plenty of mission left. If you want to be a part of that mission, RSVP and show up on Monday.
read the rest at: http://exitevent.com/four-reasons-why-monday-might-be-the-last-exitevent-startup-social-13510.asp
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Startup Sweeps Takes Community Literally With New Open HQ
Meetup Tonight Will Kick Off Co-Working, Learning, or Just Hanging Out
Published at ExitEvent
5.8.13
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 This just isn't what a startup is supposed to do.
Morris Gelblum has probably heard that more than he'd care to admit. He started Sweeps as a company to connect college students to odd jobs -- good dependable labor, up-front flat rate, platform to connect jobs with workers. Everyone wins.
Ever since I've known him, Gelblum has run Sweeps as more of an ideal than a startup, albeit an ideal with employees, customers, revenue, and now a really nice HQ just outside of Chapel Hill. That HQ, starting with a meetup tonight, will be housing co-working, classes, events, and, you know, cookouts.
But that's Sweeps. Sweeps isn't really a tech startup, but technology makes it possible, in terms of finding and connecting jobs and job-seekers. Sort of like Angie's List, a public company that's basically just message boards, Sweeps is a startup based on optimal use of existing technology in a niche scenario.
So startups aren't supposed to find odd jobs for college kids, but they're also not supposed to get you a ride, bring you dinner, or tell you what your dog is thinking.
Startups also aren't supposed to be headquartered in country houses with huge decks and porches on six acres of land. Sweeps is now that too, under the guise of Sweeps Campus.
read the rest at: http://exitevent.com/startup-sweeps-takes-community-literally-with-new-open-hq-1358.asp
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The Government Wants You To Create Startups Out Of Data... Sort Of
Published at WRAL TechWire
5.6.13
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 RALEIGH, N.C. — Back on October 3rd of last year, I got invited to a roundtable to talk to the White House about startups. I almost didn't go.
I imagined it would be an auditorium-style set-up with some low-level staffer on a stage giving 200 of us locals a 90-minute slideshow presentation outlining all the incredible ways that the government was here to help.
Well, yeah, there was that, but that was later.
What I got to sit in on was an actual round table. And I was sitting directly to the right of Todd Park, U.S. CTO. To his left were five fellows (actual fellows, not dudes, although four of them were dudes) charged with making the federal government more accessible to startups.
To my right were six Triangle folks who were heavily involved in the startup scene, including entrepreneurs like PlotWatt's Luke Fishback and Relevance's Justin Gehtland.
For the record, I was repping Automated Insights and our work making actionable human-sounding narrative out of big data.
Park is an amazingly genial guy with a lot of energy, and instead of going down that tired “what can we do to help the entrepreneurs here” road, he spent most of his time talking about the five initiatives that each of the fellows represented – everything from more streamlined ways for startups to respond to Federal RFPs to the Open Data Initiative.
The latter program was by far the most interesting, in my opinion and, soon to find out, the opinion of the others gathered around the table as well.
read the rest at: http://wraltechwire.com/government-wants-you-to-create-startups-out-of-data/12414560/
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Teambuilding Without Teambuilding
Sometimes Your Team Has to Figure It Out On Their Own
Published at ExitEvent
5.2.13
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 I joke about how I came up with the idea for the ExitEvent Startup Social -- in that it should be that last part of any tech or startup conference, where everyone is drinking and socializing and getting the most out of their time. The really expensive, bloated, and boring part, from the networking power breakfast to the sessions to the breakout groups to the keynotes? Let's get rid of all that.
As an entrepreneur, you have to believe that your idea will come to fruition without a roadmap. Yes, you need a roadmap, but that's for things like product release schedules, marketing, sales, company growth, things like that. The only ingredient to make a good idea succeed is faith.
So that's the Social. Faith that I don't have to put a speaker out in front or a pseudo-educational theme around why you should be there. I can't guarantee that you'll come away from the Social having learned something to propel your business forward. But nine times out of ten, people do. They find their own way.
The beauty of it is it works for an advanced later-stage big-startup CEO (think Aaron Houghton), all the way down to the idea guy at Red Hat just itching to leave and finally break out on his or her own.
Everyone talks about helping entrepreneurs and then getting out of the way. I like to think ExitEvent -- both the site and the Social -- is a case study. Plus it's a lot of fun.
Switching gears. Yesterday, Automated Insights (my actual startup), spent the day trekking out to the country to spend four hours shooting at each other with paintballs. None of us are the paintball type. With the exception of Jack, the closest any of us had come to paintball was a first-person shooter video game.
read the rest at: http://exitevent.com/teambuilding-without-teambuilding-1352.asp
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Punch in your email address and I'll email you whenever I do something stupid (usually once a week).
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