SXSW 2014 - MARCH 7-16, 2014 AUSTIN, TX
Being the leading Music Industry educational event in the country can be a difficult task for anyone but for Rick Perry and the state of Texas, which holds the title of largest private sector employer growth in the United States, it seems like a walk in the park. Actually more like the entire city ;-)
The event offers attendees a Film Festival, a Music Festival, a Trade Show for companies to showcase their products/services while educating consumers both for Music Gear as well as for Gaming and Interactive sectors. There will also be Arts, Crafts, Culinary and sports activities that will complement the many educational sessions filled with industry members, guest speakers, aspiring artists and entrepreneurs alike.
This year, more than 150,000 attendees, 30,000 worldwide advertising and marketing creative professionals, 3,000 volunteers and at least 2,000 local, regional, national and international artists have made arrangements to take part in 800+ educational sessions and present in 100 stages.
TheWirelessCowboy.tv will cast a bright spotlight specifically on the strategic and tactical lifecycle business decisions discussed by both the artist and their management including tools of the trade.
So, now that you have mastered your talent, how far will it take you?
AT SXSW 2014 there are countless networking opportunities to explore that question however, I want to highlight a few of the most important to young entrepreneurs and artists ready to take their careers to the next level.
"IN-CORP-o-RATING Your-self" : Business Lifecycle # 1 The Start-Up....
From Federal, State, City and private technology hubs and incubators all the way up to venture capitalists and angel investors. The entire country is committed to the success of our largest international export.
President Obama's Council on Jobs & Competitiveness along with the National Advisory Council on Innovation entrepreneurship are fueling economic recoveries but there are countless other private organizations like, Start-Up America Partnership and Start-up Weekend which have fused together to form global resources like UP-Global.
Recently, even the un-employed are getting help through a program known as Start-Up Quest designed specifically for them. These organizations have gathered great thinkers and doers together to inspire all of us to take calculated risks and bring forward our ideas to market.
Former executives like John Sculley from Apple will present along with current CEO's like Fred Ehrsam from Coinbase, BitCoin's most popular Wallet Service Servicing 900k wallets. They will discuss the good, the bad and the ugly of the various 21st century tools available today.
Speakers like Alex Mital will discuss the discouraging venture capital macro-realities FOR the masses and the need for safer crowd-funding sites like IndieGoGo and KickStarter to invest in micro-ideas FROM the masses.
Aaron Levine founder of BOX, a file sharing and collaboration site he started while in college back in 2005 will discuss how he managed to grow it into a 2 Billion dollar business. In contrast, smaller entrepreneurs like Sung Kim will have the opportunity to inspire all of us by bringing their most recent Kickstarter projects, in his case a project called GESTURES just recently backed.
Of-Course there will always be room for great leaders like Steve Case who through his Washington DC venture capital firm, Revolution has funded many start-up companies like LivingSocial and ZipCar just to name a few.
Marc Cuban, who started as a bartender sleeping on the floor and is today a billionare owner of the Mavericks basketball team and Shark-Tank angel Investor will inspire all of us along side names like Guy Kawasaki ( Apple ), Nick Deprey ( HomeStage ), Peter Jongerius, Craig Key ( Space150 ) Blake Irving ( GoDaddy ) and even presidental family members like Chelsea Clinton and Lauren Bush Lauren who along with Eleanor Whitney will lend a bit of government advocacy to the entire line-up.
While some speakers focus on funding there is a huge interest in empowering women into the entrepreneurial bandwagon so bloggers like Christina Vuleta from 40/20 Vision @4020vision and @FortyOver will focus on Women, Age and misconceptions, bringing along angel investors like Susan McPhearson, Business owners like Maria Thomas ( Etsy, SmartThings ) and community leaders to round the table.
The entire effort is caped by various in-festival events, contests and awards like Start-Up Austin from the Austin Chamber of Commerce. The #SXSWReleaseIT hashtag for short pitches. The Peter Thiels prestigious fellowship program. The V2V Venture Pitch emmceed by Christine Herron. ( Intel Capital ) The Start-Up ECO Speed Pitches for clean energy companies like AdBm, Beyonic, Enervee, Faraday, Fluitec, Framergy, GELI, GreenWizard, Librii. The Digital Creative Job Fair and The Mjusic Hackathon Championship sponsored by ATT and Tech Open, Air Berlin, Beats Music, Choose Digital, Warner Music Group, Gracenote, Rdio, Senzari, The Echo Nest and Spotify.
Finally The Film Start-Up Alley and Music Start-Up Village will open the floor to national and international companies including a large delegation from Brazil ( 4th largest economy in the world in the next 15 years currently hosting the 6th Largest internet user base ( 86 Million ) and the largest Facebook/Twitter user base along with 123 Million cellphone users.)
Now a 21st Century event would not be complete without the presence of the media and we will have both traditional and digital. Of Note are Rohit Thawani Redditor and Ink Karma up-loader at @Vohit4rohit, Randi Zuckerberg Marketing professional and Dot Complicated Editor-In-Chief.
SXSW 2014 ACCELERATOR START-UPS :
ANALYTICS
- DataBox - BigData API connector and visualizer
- Blab - Consumer conversation predictions
- SocialGimpz - Mobile big data measurements
- FlipTu - Social media management aggregation platform
- MobiSocial - Social data ownership
- IndieSocial - Social insights revenue, conversions, acquisitions
DEVELOPMENT TOOLS
- OP3Nvoice - Open Source API SDK for audio video search
- Tsugi Builder - Cloud mobile app compiler IOS, Android & Unity project ( test/deploy )
- AddSearch - Add search to any website for ANY device
- Nano Media - Mobile ads NOT 320x50px banners
- ViddyAd - Commercially licensed videos and images
- Samba.me - Video sharing with reaction shots
- Surfly - Surfing the web together
- PivotDesk - Office space hosting
- PlayCanvas - First cloud hosted 3D game SDK
- SonarDesign - Create, share, publish, monetize, promote APPS
- Waigo - Cloudless translations
- InsideMaps - 3D furniture modeling in home
- ShopStoree - Store virtualization
- Ferris - Social video app
- Shoto - Private auto cloud photo sharing
- MightyCast - Cloud connecting physical objects
- MentorMob - Crowd-sourced learning guides
- FilmMaker Live - Collaborative visualization
- Cinematique - Interactive motion touch video
- Zepp Labs - Mobile motion capture
- HexAirBot - Quadcopter with Arduino SDK and WIFI cam under $159
- Artiphone - IOS sensor instrument
- Eyeris - Webcam with emotions recognition
- PPLConnect - Share cellphone with ANY web device
- Skully Helmets - Augmented reality ( AR-1 )
- Avegant - Wearable head mounted displays ( the Glyph )
- Theatro - Wearable Enterprise Augmented retail SAAS
SXSW 2014 TOOLS OF THE TRADE :
GODADDY.COM ( GetFound )
- USE it to Host your website
- USE it to Build your website
- USE it to Get your website/company found
- USED with Google, Yahoo, Yelp, FourSquare
- USE it to Upload your music and distribute
- USE it to Create playlists for promotional branding and marketing
- USE it to Create merchandising promotions
- USE it to Upload your music and distribute
- USE it to Create playlists for promotional branding and marketing
- USE it to Create merchandising promotions
- USE it to Distribute unlimited music for $20 a Year
- USE it to Distribute on Itunes, Spotify, Beats, Rdio, Deezer, Amazon, Google Play
- USE it to Lower your capital investment on merchandising
- USE it to Outsource your merchandising operations
- USE it to Sell merchandise on Spotify and Beats Music
- USE it to Manage your inventory
- USE it to Mark-Up your merchandise
- USE it to Create landing pages with e-commerce for your merchandise
- USE it to Process your transactions and fulfill your orders
- USE it to Collect your profits
- USE it to Manage your customer service
- USE it to Link Songampr page URL to your Spotify and Beats Music
- USE it to Crowd-source ideas and content
- USE it to Recruit an army for "street credentials"
- USED by BuzzFeed, Huffington Post, CNN and ESPN
- USED by PR, agencies, brands, creators, start-ups, film-makers
FUNDING OPTIONS TO DEVELOP NEW BUSINESS
Brick and Mortar Online Enterprise
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics there are roughly 1 50 million tax returns in the USA every year of which 20 million are small business owners and 1 0 million medium to large
enterprises, Whether you are a business owner now, looking to start your own or working for one>
of these employers, it is important that you understand the following business goals as you move
forward with your career and possibly launch the next disruptive start-up.
Is the newest form of raising capital with KickStarter.com becoming the most innovative funding option for a small business owner with limited financing. Rather than struggling through more traditional and long establish institutional business lending processes you can dis-intermediate the middleman and go right to the consumer to present your product, service or idea. If you are able to convince your potential customer to buy from you ( they have become your financiers ) and you must reward them with something, which is usually first dibs on one of a kind products before anyone else and of-course lower prices than everyone else. Basically, you get to sell your product before it's even made.
The Small Business Administration states that the average cost of starting a business is around
$30,000 usd and most online and home based businesses can actually start for 1 /4 of that. The consultants, freelancers and online entrepreneurs that operate these sole proprietorships, LLCsalign: justify" account for almost 2/3 of the total companies out there.
Let's look at start-up financing first. . .
Let's look at start-up financing first. . .
SELF FAMILY FRIENDS
They are an entrepreneurs first option after the banks turn them down.I ronically, in today's post recession, underwater foreclosure, 99 week unemployment, wall street bailout, Bernie Madeoff upside down world they may be the only ones you can trust and believe in your ability to repay the debt. None the less be it a bank or your friends you will need to make a business presentation that is professional and makes good business sense so in either case this magazine is for you. Remember, the average small business can take 24 months to turn a profit.
They are an entrepreneurs first option after the banks turn them down.I ronically, in today's post recession, underwater foreclosure, 99 week unemployment, wall street bailout, Bernie Madeoff upside down world they may be the only ones you can trust and believe in your ability to repay the debt. None the less be it a bank or your friends you will need to make a business presentation that is professional and makes good business sense so in either case this magazine is for you. Remember, the average small business can take 24 months to turn a profit.
BANKS
Will not look approve your business plan unless you have at least 2 years of Balance Sheets or Profit and Loss in your business or marketing plan. Even if you do, you will have to secure the loan with collateral like your home at a much lower value than it appraises and begin principal and interest payments immediately after disbursement. The SBA and the government may be of assistance if you are a minority, woman or veteran owned business and certain industries and markets may receive special loan guarantees also to relax lending requirements.
Will not look approve your business plan unless you have at least 2 years of Balance Sheets or Profit and Loss in your business or marketing plan. Even if you do, you will have to secure the loan with collateral like your home at a much lower value than it appraises and begin principal and interest payments immediately after disbursement. The SBA and the government may be of assistance if you are a minority, woman or veteran owned business and certain industries and markets may receive special loan guarantees also to relax lending requirements.
ANGEL INVESTORS
Can be a source of personally detached funding but at the high cost of loosing equity in your company and voting control. These investors are focused on funding new ideas and taking ownership so they can cash in at the end either by being bought out or selling the business to the highest bidder. The good news is, they do not require repayment immediately and they will wait 1 -2 years for you to grow your business. Think Shark Tank! ! !
Can be a source of personally detached funding but at the high cost of loosing equity in your company and voting control. These investors are focused on funding new ideas and taking ownership so they can cash in at the end either by being bought out or selling the business to the highest bidder. The good news is, they do not require repayment immediately and they will wait 1 -2 years for you to grow your business. Think Shark Tank! ! !
VENTURE CAPITAL GROWTH CAPITAL
Firms like Sequoia and KPCB will be the toughest funding to acquire since they disburse in rounds rather than lump sums focusing on larger business ventures. There are more than a thousand firms in the USA with various verticals as their focus and various degrees of success so feel free to shop around. VCs recoup their capital investment 75-80% of the time, charge interest rates between 5-20% and require median valuations of around 25 million in order to invest. 65% of VC firms are located in California, New York and Texas.
CROWD-FUNDING
Firms like Sequoia and KPCB will be the toughest funding to acquire since they disburse in rounds rather than lump sums focusing on larger business ventures. There are more than a thousand firms in the USA with various verticals as their focus and various degrees of success so feel free to shop around. VCs recoup their capital investment 75-80% of the time, charge interest rates between 5-20% and require median valuations of around 25 million in order to invest. 65% of VC firms are located in California, New York and Texas.
CROWD-FUNDING
Is the newest form of raising capital with KickStarter.com becoming the most innovative funding option for a small business owner with limited financing. Rather than struggling through more traditional and long establish institutional business lending processes you can dis-intermediate the middleman and go right to the consumer to present your product, service or idea. If you are able to convince your potential customer to buy from you ( they have become your financiers ) and you must reward them with something, which is usually first dibs on one of a kind products before anyone else and of-course lower prices than everyone else. Basically, you get to sell your product before it's even made.
