Entrepreneurship

Sales help provider KickStartSales.com launches out of Tech Brewery

By Newsroom

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August 31, 2011

Mark Shalinsky sees a hole in the market for start-ups in need of sales help, and he is planning to fill it with his new start-up KickStartSales.com. Shalinsky recently worked in sales for Massachusetts-based Jove, telecommuting from Ann Arbor. He noticed a lot of local start-ups in need of solid sales help at reasonable prices, so he started KickStartSales.com with the idea of developing that sales force for them. "The goal for me is be the director of sales for a number of start-ups and mid-size companies," Shalinsky says. He adds that his staff would work closely with these start-ups, eventually developing skilled personnel who are familiar enough with the start-ups to join them as sales directors. "That way we can be local for local start-ups," Shalinsky says. "The goal is to hire local and sell global." KickStartSales.com has two clients and a goal of starting with a staff of 3-4 people by this fall, working out of the Ann Arbor-based Tech Brewery. Shalinsky is currently looking to hire a few people. The long-term plan is to expand into a solid physical presence in both Ann Arbor and another entrepreneurial hub in Michigan, such as Detroit or Grand Rapids. Source: Mark Shalinsky, founder of KickStartSales.com Writer: Jon Zemke

Latest in Entrepreneurship

U-M students start Fetchnotes to ease digital workflow

By Newsroom

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Economic Development

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August 24, 2011

Conventional wisdom says success is in the details. For Fetchnotes, its success lies in its notes. Digital notes. The brand spanking new start-up led by a couple of University of Michigan students is developing software that allows people to take and keep notes on a variety of computer platforms, such as laptops or smart phones. The idea is to take these random thoughts and integrate them into people's normal digital workflow. "I saw that myself and other people had this problem of capturing thoughts and ideas," says Alex Schiff, CEO and co-founder of Fetchnotes. "Other people had problems keeping track of tasks." The new software also allows users to organize and search for their random musings without copying and pasting or trying to otherwise manually jump computer platforms. The bottom line is Schiff and his partner, Chase Lee, plan to get these valuable thoughts out of the users' brains and into their everyday workflow with minimal work. Fetchnotes plans to roll out its software to early adopters this fall and begin beta testing shortly after that. It already has 1,000 people signed up and expects to have 500,000 users trying it for free within its first year and a small but significant percentage of those buying the premium version. "In the next year, we'd like to have 10,000 paying users," Lee says. Source: Alex Schiff and Chase Lee, co-founders of Fetchnotes Writer: Jon ZemkeRead more about Metro Detroit's growing entrepreneurial ecosystem at SEMichiganStartup.com.

Is MGoBlog The Future Of Sports Journalism?

By Jon Zemke

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General

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August 17, 2011

By some accounts Brian Cook is running the largest independent team-specific sports blog in the U.S.. MGoBlog pulls in 200K readers per month, a passionate community of fans, and the kind of demographics that make advertiser's mouths water. So, how does the site's iconoclastic voice and style fit in today's media landscape, and what are its implications for the future?

The Passion Of Rich Sheridan

By Jon Zemke

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General

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August 10, 2011

Richard Sheridan has seen it all. The burst of the tech bubble, downsizing, basement start-up anxieties, and, finally, success. Today his Menlo Innovations is a company that wins accolades for its work philosophy and clients for its bottom line. Jon Zemke talks to Ann Arbor's go-to guy on entrepreneurship about what it takes to build a successful company. Hint: coffee may play a role.

Ann Arbor SPARK scores $10.8M for investments and programs

By Newsroom

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Community Development

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August 3, 2011

Ann Arbor SPARK plans to spread $10.8 million it received from the state last week toward replenishing the Michigan Pre-Seed Capital Fund, funding the Accelerate Michigan Innovation Competition and starting the Michigan Angel Fund.The Michigan Economic Development Corp awarded the money from the state's 21st Century Jobs Fund. Most of it, $9.17 million, will go toward reloading the four-year-old Michigan Pre-Seed Capital Fund. The $14 million evergreen fund has invested $13.4 million in local pre-seed stage start-ups to help them finish larger fundraising rounds."If the trends of the last four years stay in place this fund will last us two years, possibly a little longer," says Skip Simms, senior vice president of Ann Arbor SPARK and administrator of the Michigan Pre-Seed Capital Fund.Approximately $1.05 million will go toward funding the second annual Accelerate Michigan Innovation Competition. The Business Accelerator Network of Southeast Michigan's business-plan competition offers more than $1 million in prizes for the cream of the crop of Michigan-based start-ups and companies interested in moving to the Great Lakes State. The funds will cover the awards and logistics of the event, which is managed by Ann Arbor SPARK.The remaining $600,000 will pay for the administrative costs of the Michigan Angel Fund, a new angel investor group managed by Ann Arbor SPARK. The new $5 million investment fund from which everything but the administrative costs will come from high-net-worth individuals, will be focused on investing in Michigan-based, early stage start-ups. The investments are intended to help bridge the gap between turning research into commercialized technology."We're raising funds for it now," Simms says. "We hope to initiate it as soon as possible." He adds that there is no definitive timeline for launching the fund.Source: Skip Simms, senior vice president of Ann Arbor SPARKWriter: Jon ZemkeRead more about Metro Detroit's growing entrepreneurial ecosystem at SEMichiganStartup.com.

Forbes ranks Ann Arbor CEO Ann Marie Sastry in “Top 12 Women of Cleantech”

By Newsroom

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Entrepreneurship

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August 3, 2011

Clean tech is all the rage in start-up culture and Ann Arbor is making its mark. Or rather, Ann Marie Sastry, president and CEO of Sakti3, is. Forbes just ranked her amongst the "Top 12 Women of Cleantech." Nice timing to go along with the company's recent plans for expansion.Excerpt:"Men invented, engineered, invested in, and presided over the technologies and companies that made oil, coal, and natural gas the dominant fuels of our time. And now men appear to be running the show at most of the firms pushing renewables, efficiency, clean cars, and the smart grid. (The Wall Street Journal's recent list of the top ten cleantech enterprises, for instance, is essentially a men's club.)Look a little closer, though, and you see that women are gradually, quietly permeating clean-energy industries. Some are engineering new technologies. Some are climbing the ranks in big companies. Some are investing tens of millions in start-ups, or founding their own. Women are still a small minority in this sector, to be sure, but there's good reason to believe that they will play ever greater and more influential roles in the fast-evolving cleantech sector than they ever have in fossil fuels."Read more here.

Salon Vox to add another floor, open cosmetology school

By Tanya Muzumdar

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Development News

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August 3, 2011

The downtown Ann Arbor hair salon featured as one of ELLE magazine's top 100 salons in the U.S. for 2009 and 2010 is getting a new 'do. Salon Vox recently purchased the basement and first two floors of its locale at 115 W. Liberty Street. The five-year-old salon has occupied the basement and first floor of the building. With the addition of the second floor, the new footprint will be 5,400 square feet, a 50% increase in size. The extra level means the number of styling stations will go from 12 to 24, says Jeniffer Hepler, owner of Salon Vox. Hepler also plans to open an onsite cosmetology academy for existing and new stylists. The 22-employee salon will be hiring as a result of the expansion. She declines to disclose project cost figures or an expected number of new jobs. In a down or flat-lining economy, hairstyling is often one of the first discretionary items to be cut; however, Hepler says, business has remained unaffected throughout. The salon focuses on different equipment, updated styles, and continuing education, she says. She also attributes its success to active involvement in the Main Street Area Association and a downtown location. "We focus on a lot of the young professionals in the area, and so they still come down for work and then are able to come get a haircut," Hepler explains. Many salons close between 5 and 7 p.m. on weekdays, but Salon Vox is open until 9 p.m. all week. Thursdays are late nights; doors are open until midnight and a DJ spins. An 11th hour haircut!? "Oh my goodness, we're booked!" she laughs. "We've done that since we've opened, so it's been a great success." Source: Jeniffer Hepler, owner of Salon Vox Writer: Tanya Muzumdar

Make Don’t Chase: LLamasoft’s Don Hicks and Toby Brzoznowski

By Jon Zemke

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General

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July 20, 2011

The founders of Ann Arbor logistics firm LLamasoft don't mince words when it comes to attracting professional talent, developing their business, or expressing their disdain for VC culture. Hire smart, be fiercely competitive, create a good product, don't be a jerk (only they didn't say jerk). Concentrate's Jon Zemke puts the partners through the paces and even gets them to talk football.

IP consultant 284 Partners bets on Ann Arbor and wins

By Newsroom

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Community Development

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July 13, 2011

It could have gone either way. On the one hand, Ann Arbor boasts big league research spending. On the other, it has few smart mobile device and web-based technology companies. The 284 IP firm took a gamble and got results that exceeded expectations.Excerpt:""I love Ann Arbor, and a practice like mine usually thrives in San Francisco, Chicago and New York, but there are not as many of these practices in Michigan. I thought there was potential in that," Lasinski said. "But being here also keeps our HR and infrastructure costs low. And that cost savings is something we could pass along to the client."Lasinski and Arst estimate about 60 percent of their workload is consulting and expert witness work in litigation, a market that has grown along with the national economic recovery. Another 20 percent is patent valuation for tax and regulatory purposes, and 20 percent is advisory work on transactions involving IP."Read the rest of the story here.

FamilyMint collects interest as it sprouts in Ann Arbor

By Newsroom

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Economic Development

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July 13, 2011

FamilyMint is gathering followers, customers and traction as the little start-up that saves is beginning to significantly grow in Ann Arbor's Tech Brewery.The 2-year-old firm has developed a web tool that allows parents to teach their kids the lessons of saving and managing a bank account with the grownups actually holding the money and acting as the bank. The firm offers both web and mobile app options."Our user numbers have steadily grown," says Bob Masterson, co-founder of FamilyMint. "Our revenues are starting to pick up but we're still in start-up mode." He and his co-founder are full-time and have hired two part-timers. They expect to hire one or two full-time employees later this year.Making that growth possible is early adoption of FamilyMint's software by local credit unions. The company has half a dozen credit unions using its product and plans to bring another five online this summer. FamilyMint will also be bringing a local bank and some financial planners onboard, but credit unions look to be its most promising customer base."We'd like to see our strategy with credit unions take off," Masterson says. "We're expecting the number of credit unions to take off in January when they're looking at their budgets for 2012."Source: Bob Masterson, co-founder of FamilyMintWriter: Jon ZemkeRead more about Metro Detroit's growing entrepreneurial ecosystem at SEMichiganStartup.com.