Colorado Springs Entrepreneurs Group February 2010- Meeting Agenda: (Draft 1)

1. "Gettin in the Mood" - Food and Refreshments, Socializing, Introductions - - 25 Minutes (Group)
-- Food Sponsor - Ensemble Ventures, LLC

2. CSE Group Membership News and Internet Updates - 5 Minutes (M. Schmidt - Meetup & NING)
-- Org Site, Ning Site, Meetup Happenings, Policies/Procedures

3. Special Guest Business Speaker - 30 Minutes

Mr. Steve Baker, Director/Host DaVinci Institute's Startup Junkie Underground

About Steve:
Steve Baker is a founder of successful businesses, a corporate executive and business advisor with proven leadership in every phase of business cycle from startup to exit. He directs strategic marketing and business development and has taken companies from startup to millions of dollars in revenues. He is a Senior Fellow of the DaVinci Institute, a futurist think tank, and host of the Startup Junkie Underground.

As a public speaker, Steve shares his contagious enthusiasm to educate and inspire startup businesses and university students. Steve is passionate about business and life, and lives in Colorado where he is an avid poor golfer.

Steve's Talk:
What would you do when you do everything right...and it all goes wrong?  So, when was the last time you met a guy who was sued for $1.4 Billion?  Well, I’m that guy and I’ve written my story about living the American dream.  My book shares the fun, excitement and pure exhilaration of building a successful company. Steve shares the fun, energy, and excitement of creating an extremely successful travel company from scratch.  In less than a year from going public, the company had grown to over 300 travel agencies and $500 million in revenues and included major business partners like Kmart and Playboy enterprises. But, after tremendous success, Steve also shares the shock, pain, and deep despair as he watched helplessly while the company and his life vaporized before his eyes.  There is a right way and a wrong way to fail.   It all begins and ends with ethics, and ethics should not be situational. For an idea of what you have in store visit Steve's website:  http://www.pushingwater.com/page/page/1546420.htm

BREAK (5 Minutes)

4. "QuickPitch" - "Off The Floor and Off the Cuff" Entrepreneur Sales Pitch - 1 Minute Each
-- Volunteer Pitches from Members who are seeking capital, seeking help, seeking customers, etc.
-- No reservation needed. If you want to make a "QuickPitch" - Bring it On !

http://www.colospgsbiz.org

To CSE Group Members:

Opening-up our 2010 season we have a great evening planned for the CSE Group Meeting... (See agenda below).

Be sure to RSVP on the Meetup Site, (for Members):  http://www.meetup.com/colospgsbiz

To all CSE Group Members:

Well, we have reached the end of 2009, hopefully all in one piece after a somewhat "rocky" year both professionally and personally for many of us who may have experienced a slow down or drop-off in business, have a personal financial challenge facing them, or generally struggled in this economic "down-turn" we have all had to endure...  Hopefully 2010 will bring an uptick in the general mood of the country and allow us all to begin to build our businesses up again.

In our final end of year meetup this month, I would like to invite you all (as well as guests) to our December 2009 Meetup and Holiday Mixer where we can share some food and fun, and reflect back over the year's high's and low's, and starting laying plans for the new year by doing some serious "holiday networking" and meeting some new business contacts, and learning some new tips and techniques to help you business grow.

So take a look at our December 2009 Meetup Group Agenda below and be sure to log into the Meetup Site and RSVP for your attendance... http://www.meetup.com/colospgsbiz

Colorado Springs Entrepreneurs Group December 2009 "Holiday" Mixer Agenda: (Update)

1. Group - Introductions - - 10 Minutes (Group)
-- Our Gettin' in the Mood Secion Moved to Holiday Mixer in Second Hour !

2. CSE Group Membership News and Internet Updates - Briefly (M. Schmidt - Meetup & NING)
-- Org Site, Ning Site, Meetup Happenings

3. Special Guest Business Speaker - 30 Minutes

Mr. Chuck Kocher - Firm Owner/Certified Emerald Master Coach/Certified Executive Leadership
Coach/Global Trainer

About Chuck:

Our speaker this Wednesday evening is Chuck Kocher. Chuck heads up one of the most successful ActionCOACH franchises and firms in the world, is a Certified Executive and Master Coach. Chuck's clients span the globe and he has a very active local coaching firm. His clients have achieved massive results in the areas of Time/Team/Leadership/Profits/Growth. His clients have also achieved industry, local, regional and global awards and recognition. He has hosted a weekly radio business program for the past 6 years, "Talking Business.Taking Action" with a loyal following throughout Colorado. Chuck is a student of business success in the small mid-market.

Topic Overview:

The topic for discussion this Wednesday will focus on how business owners and organizations can capitalize on the current economic conditions to be successful now and to emerge as significant winners. He will focus on how to build an extraordinary business in any economy and what the truly great businesses are doing right now as we speak to do just that. He will share insights from business thought leaders and companies who are both global leaders and local leaders.

Bio Break - 5 Minutes

4. "QuickPitch" - "Off The Floor and Off the Cuff" Entrepreneur Sales Pitch - 1 Minute Each
-- Volunteer Pitches from Members who are seeking capital, seeking help, seeking customers, etc.
-- No reservation needed. If you want to make a "QuickPitch" - Bring it On !

5. Guest Start-up Entrepreneur(s) - 5 Minute Pitch - 5 Minute Q&A
-- To Be Announced

CSE Group Business Happenings:

6. Small Business Funding Developments:
--3Ci Collaborative Community Capital Program - Mike Schmidt - 5 Minutes
----- Program Update
--Seed Capital Fund - "Velocity Innovation Partners"
----- Program Update

7. InSide/OutSide Your Business - 5 Minutes
-- Tips and Techniques
-- Mike's Stack-O-Stuff

Formal Meeting Ends (7:30PM) - Holiday Mixer Begins !
-- Food and Refreshments, Socializing
-- Open Discussions/Small Group Meetings/Holiday Mixer
-- Food Sponsor - Ensemble Ventures, LLC and Others

-- Final Wrap at 9PM !
====================================
East Library
5550 N Union Blvd
Colorado Springs, CO 80918
719-531-6333

To CSE Group Members:
I have been invited to participate on a panel at the upcoming Social/Mobile Media Conference being put on by Qittle, (an Aspen, CO-based social media and mobile messaging solutions provider). Here is the event details:

Date: Tuesday, February 9, 2010
Time: 3:30 PM - 7:00 PM

Location:
City Auditorium
221 E. Kiowa St.
Colorado Springs, CO

Here is the event info and registration:
http://coloradosprings.eventbrite.com/

Special Discount for CSE Group !
Members of the CSE Group have a special "discount code" they can use when registering for the event to save $10.00 off the $29.00 registration fee. Just enter "CSE" as your code using the eventbrite link above.

Interactive Seminars, and Networking Sessions:
Come join in this very interactive and engaging seminar to learn new tools and tactics that one can use to launch a business into the digital age. This seminar will begin with a social conversation between some of the top social media experts from surrounding communities, sharing best and worst practices for social media from their experience.

There will be a brief networking session, followed by a presentation on PR in a digital age. In this section attendants will learn tools and tactics to create a successful PR/marketing campaign through social networks. The last section will teach attendants how to be at the forefront of mobile marketing and how to begin an effective mobile campaign.

***Chance to Win a 2 Night Stay in Aspen Colorado***

Come join the educational and interactive "Social/Mobile Media at its Best "Live The Dream" seminar and be entered for a chance to win a two night stay in Aspen/Snowmass. Qittle will be choosing one lucky attendant to enjoy a 2 night stay at one of the following Hotels in Aspen Colorado:

Frias Properties of Aspen
St. Regis Aspen
Limelight Lodge

There will also be many opportunities for audience Q&A with top social media, PR and mobile marketing professionals.

Your participation and support from the CSE Group is welcomed and encouraged to help us make the Colorado Springs Conference a success !

Regards,

Mike Schmidt
CSE Group Chair

To CSE Group Members:

To paticipate in the announcement of the new Colorado Seed Capital Fund as one of the founding partners of Velocity Innovation Partners, I will be attending the Peak Venture Group breakfast on November 13, 2009 entitled, "INNOVATIVE FUNDING STRATEGIES: Alternatives for injecting cash into your company". Here is the link for the PVG Event: Peak Venture Group Breakfast

I will be supporting Karl Dakin of Divinci Quest who is one of the founding partners of Velocity Innovation Partners and will be on one of the speakers on the morning panel .

Velocity Innovation Partners is responding to this serious problem by creating a new $50 Million dollar Seed Capital Fund in Colorado that is designed as a series of integrated capital funds to support business from startup through growth and entrepreneurial education across multiple industries.

Specifically, the Company is designing these 4 targeted Funds:
-Microfinance (invest up to $50,000) of $10 million
- Seed Capital (investment $50,000 to $100,000) of $20 million
- Industry Growth (investment $100,000 to $500,000) of $17 million
- Education (investment of $150,000/person) of $3 million
(Supplemented by net earnings of the other funds)

We will be fully capitalizing each type of fund with $50 million through a direct public offering in the State of Colorado. This funding is sufficient to microfinance 200 businesses; seed fund 200 businesses; growth fund 30 businesses within the green building industry; and provide 30 year educational mortgages to 200 entrepreneurs. We are currently in the initial stages of raising our first $600K in start-up funding that will allow us to put the Direct to Public Offering in place beginning in the first quarter of 2010 to raise the first $50 Million in funding.

We will be launching an enhanced web-site in the next several weeks to provide more details about this exciting development for Colorado's much needed Seed Capital space. If you would like additional information about Velocity Innovation Partners and this new seed fund, feel free to contact me.

Re-Cap of our October 2009 CSE Group Meetup:

To those "hardy" members who braved the snow to make it to our downtown Penrose Library Meetup... Thank you.    We had close to 30 people on our RSVP initially and was expecting a full room turnout, but just 10+ made it to the meeting !   Hopefully we will not have a "snow-day" repeat in November.  (Update: Our meeting in November will be held on Monday the 30th at the East Library at 6PM).  We are putting together our speakers now, and will have additional information about the preliminary Seed Capital Fund announcement we made Wednesday night.

Like you, I really enjoyed the great night of speakers with Brent Mellow of Mellow Ventures/akaCRM, Kevin Dibble of BombBomb.com, and Debbie Saunders Mignola of ProVaultLaw.   The evening started off with strategic as well as tactical insights and ideas from Brent Mellow who provided a number of suggestions for improving your business productivity and increasing the reach and range of your customer interactions using advanced CRM tools.

Following the break, Kevin Dibble of BombBomb.com provided an overview of their exciting video e-mail solution they have been developing and beta testing for several months and outlined their investment model for raising capital to help them with an aggressive "go to market" strategy that will assist in launching their services platform and expanding their customer base.

Also, it was great to see the progress that Debbie Saunders Mignola has made with her ProVault software as a service application for processing online divorce proceedings and finanical information exchanges between spouses and their legal representatives or as individual prose litigants representing themselves.  Debbie has assembled a great technical and business advisory team and introduced her capital needs to the group so we can spread the word about her requirements and see if we can help her out.

All in all a great night of entrepreneurial exchanges and networking !

See you next month back at our "home base" at the East Library.

Mike Schmidt

CSE Group Chair

To CSE Group Members:

Our October 2009 Meetup is shaping up to be a Jam Packed event with three innovative local entrepreneurs speaking, and some exciting announcements about some new funding sources for Colorado Small Businesses that is underway.  Your CSE Group is right in the middle of some of these excitng developments.

Meeting Location:

Remember we are meeting at the Penrose Library downtown this month, (Not at the East Library).  We will return to our "home-base" at the East Library in November and December to round out our 2009 year !

Looking forward to seeing you this month !

Mike Schmidt / CSE Group Chair

Colorado Springs Entrepreneurs Group Oct 2009 Meeting Agenda: (Update 2)

1. "Gettin in the Mood" - Food and Refreshments, Socializing, Introductions - - 25 Minutes (Group)
-- Food Sponsor - Ensemble Ventures, LLC

2. CSE Group News and Internet Updates - 5 Minutes (M. Schmidt - Meetup & NING)

3. Special Guest Business Speaker - 30 Minutes

Mr. Brent Mellow President & CEO of Mellow Ventures

Presentation Title: Fourth Quarter Checklist: Getting Ready for the New Year

Businesses small and large have the need to plan for their future success. For most companies, the 4th calendar quarter is a great time to assess the results and impact of their operations from the current year and identify plans, strategies and tactics to propel them successfully into the new year. During this presentation, the audience will walk-through a checklist of key initiatives that will help any company get started in their own companies. This presentation will focus on both process and technology as tools to improve results.

Speaker Bio:

Brent Mellow is the founder of 6 companies including: akaCRM, Mellow Ventures, Colorado Springs Guide, and Astadia. Mr. Mellow has more than 20 years of experience in sales, marketing, partner management, business finance and technology infrastructure. His passion for CRM systems (constituency or customer relationship management) is manifest in his company akaCRM which is a salesforce.com system integrator and consultancy that helps firm clients improve their results. Prior to akaCRM, Brent was co-founder of Astadia (and its predecessor MW Advisors), where he helped lead the company's rapid expansion in the U.S., Europe and Asia to achieve standing as the largest system integrator for a number of SaaS-based vendors including salesforce.com, Eloqua and Xactly. While at Astadia, Brent served as its President-US, Chief Marketing Officer and had oversight for the product development, IT and legal functions. Brent remains an Astadia shareholder. Brent began his career in the financial services industry where he spent over a decade with a variety of commercial and investment banks and had roles including Senor Vice President and Managing Director in Bank of America's Global Corporate and Investment Banking Group.

Following his banking career, Brent was CEO and co-founder of a web-based market research company where he deployed one of the first analytical engines for the high-end furniture industry. Brent was later hired by CompUSA to spin-off its multi-national Call Center Services outsourcing division. Following this successful engagement, Brent became VP/Chief Administrative Officer of the spin off, The Telvista Company, where he deployed salesforce.com as the company's CRM system and later became its VP of Sales & Marketing. The company grew globally to over $100 million with operations in the U.S. and Latin America.

Brent holds an MBA from Southern Methodist University and a BBA in Finance from The University of Texas at Austin. Brent currently resides in Colorado Springs, is happily married and has three wonderful children.

BREAK (10 Minutes)

4. "QuickPitch" - "Off The Floor and Off the Cuff" Entrepreneur Sales Pitch - 1 Minute Each
-- Volunteer Pitches from Members who are seeking capital, seeking help, seeking customers, etc.

5. 1st Guest Start-up Entrepreneur(s) - 5 Minute Pitch - 5 Minute Q&A

Mr. Kevin Dibble - CTO, COO - BombBomb, Inc.

Talk Description

BombBomb.com is a Colorado Springs startup company in the business of providing video email marketing tools and solutions. Built on a monthly fee SaaS model, BombBomb is delivering value to its customers by helping them dramatically increase email open rates and click through rates. BombBomb will talk briefly about its business plan and the emerging video email space.

Speaker Bio:

Kevin is a technology entrepreneur with 20 years experience involving 5 startup companies. He has an electrical engineering degree from the University of Tulsa and got his start as a software developer. He co-founded Dallas-based startup Efficient Networks in 1993, eventually serving as vice president of engineering overseeing a team of 150 across three business units. Kevin played a key role in the growth of Efficient Networks as they rose to become the worldwide leader in DSL modems and a NASDAQ company in 1999. Most recently, Kevin served as Vice President of Development for Colorado Springs software startup XAware, Inc. In the community Kevin has served on non-profit boards since 1992, most recently as president of Pikes Peak Habitat for Humanity.

6. 2nd Guest Start-up Entrepreneur - 5 Minute Pitch - 5 Minute Q&A

Ms. Debbie Saunders Mignola, Founder, CEO & Acting Director of Sales & Marketing - ProVault, Inc.

Talk Description:

ProVault offers an exciting online technology that revolutionizes the way disclosures are done in the divorce process, eliminating tons of paperwork for people going through a divorce and double data entry, providing immediate and easy access to needed information, reducing the cost of divorce, and helping family law attorneys win more clients. Ms. Saunders Mignola is honored to present ProVault's investment opportunity to Colorado Springs Entrepreneurs Meetup group.

Speaker Bio:

Debbie has seven years experience as a software engineer as well as two years experience in startup and direct sales to Family Law professionals. Ms. Mignola brings her strong leadership and sales skills along with her technical background and experience marketing and selling to ProVault's initial and primary target market to ProVault. She started her first company, Divorce Help, two years ago, providing specialized financial reports for people going through a divorce. Ms. Mignola was a Software Engineer III for QAD for six years and graduated from UCLA with a Bachelor of Science Degree in Kinesiology.

CSE Group Business Happenings:

7. 3Ci Collaborative Community Capital Program - Mike Schmidt - 5 Minutes
-- 3Ci Status and Funding Program Update
-- Announcement of new $50M Seed Capital Fund Program for Colorado Small Business

8. CSE Group Business - Mike Schmidt - 5 Minutes
-- CSE Group Site Discussion (http://www.colospgsbi...)
-- EndoExo Update

9. InSide/OutSide Your Business - 5 Minutes
-- Tips and Techniques
-- Mike's Stack-O-Stuff

10. Group Discussions / Q&A

Formal Meeting Ends (8:00PM)
-- Open Discussions/Small Group Meetings
-- Final Wrap !
====================================
FLASH: We are meeting in October at the Downtown Penrose Library Location !

Penrose Public Library
20 N. Cascade Ave
Colorado Springs, CO 80903
531-6333

October Meetup Developments !

This week I have confirmed the participation of Mr. Brent Mellow, the President and CEO of Mellow Ventures to be our guest business speaker this month.  Mr. Mellow is an accomplished entrepreneur with a long history of banking and technology startup experience who has recently (within the last year) moved to Colorado Springs, CO from Texas and is actively developing a number of innovative businesses here in Colorado including Mellow Ventures which is a professional services firm, and akaCRM a new startup that focuses on consulting and implementation of salesorce.com CRM solutions.   His talk is entitled:

"Fourth Quarter Checklist: Getting Ready for the New Year"

Businesses small and large have the need to plan for their future success.  For most companies, the 4th calendar quarter is a great time to assess the results and impact of their operations from the current year and identify plans, strategies and tactics to propel them successfully into the new year.  During this presentation, the audience will walk-through a checklist of key initiatives that will help any company get started in their own companies. This presentation will focus on both process and technology as tools to improve results.

His complete Bio can be found at:  Brent Mellow at Mellow Ventures

Be sure to log in to the CSE Group meetup site and RSVP your attendance for this month's meeting:

The meetup URL is:  October 2009 Meetup

We are finalizing our two Entrepreneurial Speakers and will post their bio's and talk descriptions in the next week.

Looking forward to seeing you this month at the CSE Group meeting !

Regards,

Mike Schmidt, CSE Group Chair

It's Live!

Your CSE Group Web-Site has Arrived, and it's Live !  To provide an anchor internet presence, and to support our existing Meetup and NING sites, the CSE Group has launched its formal internet web-site to provide a foundation to build our brand, establish our presence and to begin to build-up and deliver our small business-focused and entrepreneurial-oriented services to the community.

Over the course of the next several months we will be adding a number of innovative web-based features and capabilities to this site to support our members from a business profiling and opportunity management standpoint.  Everything from Project Bidding Boards, to detailed business profiles and directory services to help you drive business and customers to your product and service offerings.  We are looking at a wide variety of open source software solutions to add a number of innovative online services as a benefit to our members.

Keep an eye on this site !   More to come...