From the category archives:

Entrepreneurship

Funding Your Startup – presentation by Bill Hunt

by Sara Isenberg on September 12, 2009

in Entrepreneurship,Events,Santa Cruz New Tech Meetup,Sara Isenberg,VC1to1

This is one of the best and most concise presentations I’ve seen on funding a startup!

Bill Hunt presents Funding Your Startup to the Silicon Valley New Tech Meetup. Bill Hunt has been a founder and/or senior executive in five start-ups in the application management, network security and email deliverability sectors with four of those companies being acquired, the top two for $180 million+ each.

According to Doug Erikson, founder of the Santa Cruz New Tech Meetup: “Bill gave this blazing fast presentation on key points for getting a startup funded. This is the best snapshot I have seen, and a great refresher course.”

Funding Your Startup

View more presentations from Bill Hunt.

Tagged as: Bill Hunt, Entrepreneurship, Funding, Sara Isenberg, Startup, SV NewTech Meetup

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Green Business Camp Santa Cruz October 22, 2009

by Sara Isenberg on August 25, 2009

in Conferences,Entrepreneurship,Events,Sara Isenberg

Green Business Camp … is coming to Santa Cruz!

Did you love Freelance Camp? Here’s another Unconference!

For more information, go to http://www.greenbusinesssantacruz.com

Connect with entrepreneurs, small business owners and green business leaders for a day of learning, collaboration, sharing, and networking. During this one-day Unconference event you will:

Discover dozens of new strategies, ideas and resources to help you grow your business
Spark new collaborations and opportunities with like-minded small green businesses
Gain insights from dozens of other green business leaders into your biggest business challenges

Unconference topics are driven by what you need to support your business growth and development. It is your opportunity to create connections with fellow green businesses and to form collaborations with other businesses that share similar values. Green Business Camp supports green business growth by:

Catalyzing collaboration amongst participating small green business leaders
Creating a forum for creating innovative ideas and business strategies
Spreading business wisdom and resources for green entrepreneurs

What is the schedule for the day?

The following is the basic structure for the day.

8-9am	Participant registration begins. Networking & coffee. Expo Hall is open.
9-10am	Selection & scheduling of discussion topics for the day.
10am	Welcome address by Daniel Robin.
10:45 – 12:30	Sessions 1 & 2, based on topics proposed by conference participants!
12:30	Lunch provided for conference participants. Networking, Expo Hall, and Brain Gym exercises by Sharron Patton. Other activities to be announced.
2 – 4pm	Sessions 3 & 4, more dynamic discussion for and by participants!
4 – 5pm	Last hour of Expo Hall. Raffle. Networking.
6pm – onward	Post-conference networking & after-party at nearby restaurant/lounge.

For more information, go to: http://www.greenbusinesssantacruz.com

Tagged as: Green Business Camp, Santa Cruz, Sara Isenberg

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12 new items on my To Do List from Freelance Camp

by Sara Isenberg on August 17, 2009

in Entrepreneurship,Events,Sara Isenberg

Freelance Camp 2009 in Santa Cruz was as great as I was hoping it would be. There were so many interesting topics that I wanted to be at several sessions at once — all day long. This year there were 300 campers. The downtown venue was still walkable from my house.

Now, on the Monday morning-after, my follow-up TO DO list (project managers love TO DO lists) includes:

Follow up with some of the folks I met at Freelance Camp.
Review the Wiki notes:
http://barcamp.org/FreelanceCampSessions3
Keep following the #freelancecamp tweets:
http://search.twitter.com/search?q=%23freelancecamp
Elance
Elance is the leading site for online work where businesses connect with independent professionals to get work done.
http://www.elance.com
Freelanceswitch:
FreelanceSwitch is a community of expert freelancers from around the world.
http://freelanceswitch.com
http://freelanceswitch.com/the-business-of-freelancing/online-bookkeeping-for-freelancers-that-wont-cost-an-arm-and-a-leg/
Redmine:
Redmine is an open sources flexible project management web application.
http://redmine.org
http://demo.redmine.org/
ProjectThingy
You have projects? We have ProjectThingy!
http://www.projectthingy.com
Hubspot
Hubspot is an inbound marketing system to help your small or medium sized business get found on the Internet by the right prospects and convert more of them into leads…
www.hubspot.com
The Contract Employee’s Handbook
Helping Contract Employees Manage their Careers
http://www.cehandbook.com/
Professional Association for Contract Employees
- GREAT Benefits for Independent Professionals
- HUGE Savings for Clients That Hire Contractors
http://www.pacepros.com/
Project Wonderful
Project Wonderful makes advertising awesome.
http://ProjectWonderful.com
Errors and Omissions Insurance
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Errors_and_omissions_insurance

And — this is now 13+ — here is a list of Shopping Cart resources (taken directly from the session notes):

SHOPPING CARTS – all of these manage your products, connect with direct API to payment gateway(s). Some are more seamless, looks like it’s on your site, and some of them send you over to another site to process.

Paypal: At simple end (Paypal Standard), “Buy it now button” that you can cut and paste into your site. At advanced end (Paypal Pro), you can do a seamless integration into your site. Don’t need to set up an account to make a payment.
Google Checkout: Similar to Paypal. You do need to set up an account in order to make a payment.
ZenCart: Open Source – Offshoot of OS Commerce. Natively it requires customer to set up an account in order to make a purchase.
Magento: Open Source – New hot shopping cart, developed by Variand. Very pretty. By far the most feature –rich, but it’s “a beast.” An ordeal to install and build, and the overhead based on the code is HUGE, probably slows to a crawl.
Virtue mart: Open Source – Joomla CMS plug-in
Ubercart: Open Source – Drupal CMS plug-in
WP-Ecommerce: Open Source – WordPress plug-in. Use lots of different themes. Can add items to your cart and it will show the status of your cart without reloading page. 1-page checkout option. Handles selling services online with ease. Uses multiple gateways. Just plug in a long string of numbers they give you.
Shopsite: Client has to re-enter their information every time. Pay monthly to use. Starts at around $16/month through Cruzio. Copy/past their Add to Cart code to your web page.
Foxy Cart: Hosted solution, costs money – $10-15/month. Very slick
Volusion: Hosted solution, costs money – $19/month for cheapest option. Very slick, they will also host your website, and integrate the cart.
Shopify: Hosted Solution

===

Tagged as: #freelancecamp, Business, freelance, freelance camp, Santa Cruz, Sara Isenberg

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Not the Santa Cruz I Know — dispelling a stereotype

by Sara Isenberg on August 5, 2009

in Articles,Entrepreneurship,NextSpace,Santa Cruz,Sara Isenberg

When I saw the recent Huffington Post video about “Sarah Palin vs. That Crazy Santa Cruz Lady” my gut reaction was… Santa Cruz is receiving another 15 minutes of fame with the same old stereotype. How to counter this? Jeremy Neuner, CEO of NextSpace, has written a great article in response.

More Than Just Surf City, Jeremy Neuner, August 4, 2009

By now, almost everyone in the entire known universe has seen the Huffington Post’s mashup of “Sarah Palin vs. That Crazy Santa Cruz Lady.” Whatever you may think of the former Veep candidate, the young Santa Cruzan in the video—ranting to the city council about pesticides and slavery in an attempt to, um, participate in our local democracy—doesn’t do much to dispel a popular stereotype of Santa Cruz: that ours is a quirky, un-serious town.

I won’t try to deny that Santa Cruz is a quirky place. In fact, I wouldn’t want it any other way. What the rest of the world may see as quirky, most of us Santa Cruzans see as tolerant, welcoming, creative, and innovative. Still, I’m troubled by the possibility that the viral spread of the Huffington Post video is giving our fair seaside town a bad rap. So in the interest of providing a more complete version of the character of Santa Cruz, please take a spin through the following few items:

–In this short video, Greg Gumble (yep, THE Greg Gumble) from “The Economic Report” shows why Santa Cruz is a unique ecosystem that boasts a balanced lifestyle, a history of innovation, a strong entrepreneurial spirit, and a highly educated workforce. These are the exact ingredients for a strong, vibrant economy and we’ve got more than our fair share of those ingredients in Santa Cruz.

–Santa Cruz is loaded with creative designers, scrappy entrepreneurs, and savvy business people. This video, produced and directed by NextSpace member Dusty Nelson, features a who’s who of local educators, engineers, bankers, designers, government officials, and CEOs, all offering their pitch on why Santa Cruz is a great place to work, live, and play. Take 10 minutes and watch the whole thing. It’s an awfully damn impressive piece of filmmaking and showcases some of the world-class talent in this town.

–Speaking of world-class talent, check out this Business Week article about Santa Cruz-based Plantronics and Altec Lansing. Together, these companies racked up six innovation awards at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show. Tens of millions of people all over the world use their award-winning products and every one of those products was designed right here in Santa Cruz.

–What about the money? You need a pile of it to build great companies, not an easy task in these cash-strapped times. But local social networking start-up UserVoice recently landed $800,000 in seed stage capital. AlgaeOMEGA, a bio-fuels company spun out of research at NASA and UC Santa Cruz, received another $800,000. NextSpace member Carmen Kubas led her company, Lightfoot Industries, to a third place finish in a regional venture capital competition. And local heroes12seconds.tv are luring investors with their new iPhone app and their huge community of users. Want to invest in some of the hottest new companies across a range of industries? Look no further than “quirky” Santa Cruz.

Like any city, Santa Cruz has lots of faces. We’re a surfing town, a tourist town, and a university town. Despite our depiction in the Huffington Post, Santa Cruz is a town that’s building an enviable ecosystem of business, lifestyle, and innovation. What’s our secret? We take ourselves seriously, just not too seriously.

Tagged as: Jeremy Neuner, NextSpace, Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz NextSpace

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Freelance Camp Santa Cruz 2009

by Sara Isenberg on August 4, 2009

in Conferences,Entrepreneurship,Santa Cruz,Sara Isenberg

I’m really looking forward to Freelance Camp in Santa Cruz scheduled for August 15, 2009. Last year’s event was one of my favorite events of the year. It felt like … “this is the beginning of something big” and it was!

Details (from http://freelancecamp3.eventbrite.com/):

The concept is easy. Show up. Express interests and ask questions. Break into small groups and exchange knowledge. Become a better freelancer.

Freelance Camp Santa Cruz 2009 is the fifth organized BarCamp for freelancers and independent contractors. We are proud to host this in beautiful, innovative Santa Cruz, CA. You ask: What is a BarCamp? BarCamp is an international network of user generated conferences — open, participatory workshop-events, whose content is provided by participants. The day consists of sessions proposed by attendees and the schedule is created on site the morning of the event. BarCamp is an ad-hoc gathering born from the desire for people to share and learn from each other in an open environment. It is an intense event with discussions, demos and interaction from participants.

WHAT TO EXPECT AT FREELANCE CAMP:

The day will start at 8am with an hour of socializing over coffee and pastries. We will be handing out stainless steel Klean Kanteens to the ﬁrst 200 registrants at the sign up. We have 200 Kanteens and 300 sign ups slots so come early! It is really important you arrive by 9am so you can participate in creating the day’s agenda. At 9am sharp we will give directions on how to propose a topic and then we will create a schedule. We will be harvesting the minds and expertise of all the people in the room to come up with topics pertinent to freelancers. If you’d like to lead a session you’re going to want to speak up with your topic idea at 9am, when the schedule is being created.

WHAT YOU WILL NEED TO BRING:

Your own coffee mug
A head full of topic ideas
Your laptop (free wi-fi provided.) If you are not so inclined to arrive with electronic note-taking items a simple notebook and pen will do.
Lots of business cards. This is a great networking opportunity. You can get a quick turnaround from Zazzle.com if you are in need of cards.

VENUE

Brand new Rittenhouse Building right in down town.

1375 Pacific Avenue, Santa Cruz CA 95066

Come to the Church street enterence.

Tagged as: freelance, freelance camp, Santa Cruz, Sara Isenberg

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Freelance Camp August 15, 2009

by Sara Isenberg on June 23, 2009

in Conferences,Entrepreneurship,Events,Santa Cruz,Sara Isenberg,Uncategorized

Last year, Freelance Camp in Santa Cruz was one
of the best events of the year! Here’s the scoop on
this year’s Freelance Camp 2009. Register ASAP.
This will sell out. Be there or be square!
www.freelancecamp.org

F R E E L A N C E C A M P :

S A N T A C R U Z

Saturday, August 15, 2009 | 8:00 AM – 6:00 PM

Come hang out August 15th in the amazing coastal city of Santa Cruz, California (bring your beach towel)!

Freelance Camp is a place to discuss and explore the different approaches to running a successful freelance business / small service company. Thanks to our very cool sponsors, the cost of Freelance Camp is only $25.

Come ready to learn, and if you are up to it, ready to talk!

Register for the Event Now!

Space is limited to 300 people and we will close signup at that point, so don’t miss out.

Stay Connected

Stay connected leading up to and after the event via our Facebook Freelance Camp Group

Event Details
Location	Rittenhouse Building 1375 Pacific Ave, Santa Cruz, CA
Cost	$25 General Admission Free for Students and Hardship Cases
Included	Breakfast, Lunch, and After Party and 27oz stainless Klean Kanteen
URL	www.freelancecamp.org

Who Should Come?

If you sell your services (or are considering it), you are a perfect fit:

Developers
Designers
Accountants
Bloggers / Journalists
Realtors
Lawyers
Carpenters

Engineers
Financial advisers
Marketers
Sales
Musicians
Artists
Inventors

Historically, the bulk of attendees are from hi-tech. We encourage all types of owners to come to provide a balanced perspective to business.

What To Expect

We have based our events on the Barcamp format, which is a network of user generated participatory events whose content is fully provided by the participants. Anyone with something to contribute or with the desire to learn is welcome and invited to join. Here are some tips on how to prepare:

Come with an answer and some questions to help make the agenda in the morning
Hang out with cool people and compare notes with other business owners in similar industries.
Meet folks who could help your business and / or others whom you can help.
Find potential clients, subcontractors and partners.
Work together to figure out how we can all get more time and money out of our companies.

Never heard of a bar camp? Here is a quick intro:
BarCamp is an ad-hoc gathering born from the desire for people to share and learn in an open environment. It is an intense event with discussions, demos and interaction from participants.
how it works | the rules

O U R S P O N S O R S

We have been blessed with a phenomenal outpouring of sponsorship offers this year so we wanted to give a quick shout out to some pretty special groups that are nurturing this year’s event!

	Baskin & Grant Since 1979, Baskin & Grant has been committed to providing excellent legal services in a broad range of practice areas. Their services include Intellectual Property, Business Law, Family Law, Estate Planning, and Civil litigations. Baskin & Grant embodies the relaxed and accessible ambiance of Santa Cruz, with the intensity, focus, and success rate of a big city firm.
	City of Santa Cruz The City of Santa Cruz, located between lush redwood forests and the Pacific Ocean, is one the most beautiful environments to start anything, whether that is a new family or a new business. Boasting a unique blend of camaraderie, community and cooperation (and easy access to Silicon Valley talent and services) Santa Cruz thrives on a long history of innovation and entrepreneurship.
	Cruzio Technology For Your Next 20 Years Cruzio Internet is the largest and longest running Internet Service Provider in Santa Cruz County. They are the high-speed DSL and Web Hosting leader for local business and home subscribers. Committed to changing and growing to meet their members’ needs, Cruzio now offers in-store computer repair and Joomla, SEO and ecommerce classes. It’s hard to believe that Cruzio first opened their doors when most current UCSC students were just born. As time flies by, their commitment to quality service and supporting local non profit organizations has never wavered. With over 10,000 members, Cruzio provides excellent Internet services coupled with one of the most flexible and intelligent tech teams out there.
	Elance Elance is the leading site for online work where businesses connect with independent professionals to get work done. On Elance, businesses find the experts they need plus the tools to manage online work from hiring to collaboration to making payment. Elance offers companies flexibility, cost effectiveness and instant access to a vast pool of skilled and tested talent. Professionals use Elance to find work, deliver great results and get paid for doing what they do best.
	Happy Santa Cruz Happy Santa Cruz is here to help make Santa Cruz, California the happiest place on earth. We’ll be continually creating high-quality, locally inspired and produced products that effectively communicate the positive aspects of Santa Cruz. These products will mirror our enthusiasm for Santa Cruz and its inhabitants, and we hope they do the same for those who wear them. Visit us at www.happysantacruz.com and tell us why Santa Cruz makes YOU happy!
	Hope Foundry Hope Foundry creates budget-friendly Drupal sites by providing professional job training, free of charge, to aspiring developers. Our goal is to make development training accessible to everyone regardless of income, while offering businesses the opportunity to purchase web services at a reduced cost. The money a client pays for a website supports the education of Hope Foundry students. Our sponsored job training model is part of an ongoing effort to create jobs locally while stimulating economy globally.
	NextSpace NextSpace is a coworking and innovation space located in the heart of Downtown Santa Cruz, CA. The mission of NextSpace is to catalyze local talent, local ideas, and local capital in Santa Cruz to create products, services, and solutions for the global marketplace. Our members are part of a community of innovators who are passionately committed to building the next generation of the Santa Cruz economy. Santa Cruz is full of talented freelancers, entrepreneurs, designers, engineers, programmers, consultants, and investors.
	Palace Office Supply & Office Interiors Palace started in Monterey in the 1890’s, expanded to Santa Cruz in the ’40s and was purchased by the Trowbridge family in 1949. Palace has grown exponentially acquiring 9 other independent office supply companies throughout the Central Coast. Today, we are the largest independent dealer of art and office supplies, and office furniture in Santa Cruz and Monterey. We clearly understand that we are the Local Alternative to the Mega Companies and we know that we must try harder, be more creative, add value, offer equal to/or better pricing and out service our competition everyday to continue to earn the privilege of being in business. We have built this family owned company and our reputation on doing exactly as we have promised: giving world-class service locally and truly saving our customers money everyday on both office supplies and office furniture.
	Parachute Creative Parachute Creative is a Santa Cruz based collective specializing in design, branding, digital media solutions and marketing. Our passion for aesthetic forward thinking drives us to generate stimulating and representative design, prevalent in the versatility and originality of our creative process. We strive to contribute to our community to promote sustainable growth, innovation, collaboration and most of all: the ability to adapt in any climate. Underpinned by a maxim of uncompromising quality, free formed concepts will fit seamlessly within the client’s tone and roots.
	Santa Cruz New Tech Meetup Spearheaded by tech-enthusiast Doug Erickson, the SCNT MeetUp stems from the idea of harnessing the true potential, knowledge and skills of Santa Cruz tech professionals who either work or have had extensive industry experience in Silicon Valley. The SCNT MeetUp strives to create this community of technologists in order to expand strategic community thinking regarding quality of life and prosperity of the city of Santa Cruz. Through persistence and dedication, what started out as a meeting of just 39 attendees at the police department’s community room, is now a vibrant association of 720 members.
	Shane and Peter Our mission is to build a comprehensive network of independent contractors and to mediate their skills with the business needs of our clients. At S&P we go beyond providing comprehensive web services; we help identify and pursue opportunities relevant to our client’s core business, leading to new profit centers and improved workflow. Using cutting-edge design and development tools, backed by years of industry experience, S&P delivers premium results quickly and efficiently. We build teams to meet your challenges.
	Small Business Development Center of Northern California The Small Business Development Center (SBDC), located at Cabrillo College, offers numerous resources and tools for business to thrive and survive. Given the current economic climate, the SBDC is a true gem for all the services and guidance they provide in running a successful business. New and existing businesses can leverage the Center’s consulting services to review existing processes, operations and cash flow while planning for the future.
	Studio Holladay Established in 2005, a consultancy that specialized in marketing, design, branding, photography and custom web-based solutions.
	Sugar CRM SugarCRM is the world’s leading commercial open source customer relationship management (CRM) system. Sugar is designed to be used by businesses as small as an individual, as well as by the largest sales, marketing and customer support teams. With an amazing amount of flexibility to meet the needs of any business, Sugar can help you attract and manage more customers while driving customer satisfaction levels – all without increasing your cost of doing business. Regardless of your industry or business model, Sugar can help you gain visibility into your operations to best optimize your business objectives – in a fast, affordable manner.