BBC #5: 8/28/12

Presentation and Presenter: Betamore, Mike Brenner

We invited Mike Brenner to be our first guest speaker at the BBC because of a recommendation from someone in the Baltimore community.  He did not disappoint, as he explained many of his past experiences, ideas, and introduced his latest company “Betamore,” with lots of questions and answers along the way.

After graduating from George Washington, he launched a web design studio, Sunrise Design, with his Alma mater as one of his first clients.    While running the studio, he also helped organize Beehive Baltimore, a community of other freelancers, designers, and entrepreneurs.  He would later take some of his lessons learned from the Beehive to help launch Betamore.   He launched his third major project, Startup Baltimore in 2010.  The website served as an online publication that followed the Baltimore startup community.  Earlier this year, the website was acquired by Technically Media and re-branded as Technically Baltimore, to compliment one of their other publications, Technically Philadelphia, which has a similar focus in Philly.  Hearing about these experiences provided an engaging conversation for the BBC.  Most of our regular members are in sales or engineering (with Chris Diller being the lone designer), so it was interesting to hear about the different communities and people around Baltimore.

We also discussed some ideas regarding “The Lean Startup,” by Eric Ries.  Drew Vogt presented the startup loop at a past BBC meeting.  Mike is a big proponent of the ideas discussed in the book, so it was exciting to hear positive feedback about some concepts we had previously discussed.

Lastly, we discussed Mike Brenner’s latest project, Betamore, a startup incubation center he is launching in Federal Hill this Fall with two other partners.  These types of centers exist in major cities across the country, and the Betamore team is looking forward to helping other entrepreneurs achieve their goals while building a talent hub to hopefully keep many of these growing tech companies in Baltimore and attracting talent to move here.

Individuals in early stage companies can join Betamore (with different membership opportunities) to take advantage of shared work spaces, collaboration, and mentoring from the Betamore staff.  They also hope to attract venture capitalists to join, so they have early access to some of the innovative ideas the city has to offer.  A key differentiator with Betamore is the emphasis of ongoing education.  They have a classroom set up in their facility, and plan to have members and experts in the community teach classes that are open to the general public.  Interested in learning how to build an iphone app?  Take the Betamore class on it.  Want to learn more about website design? There is a Betamore class for it.  Mike describes the community as “a gym membership for nerds,” and although construction has delayed its opening until October, they have a few dozen applicants ready to move in.

However, Betamore is hosting a launch event at the end of September called “Startup Weekend.”  Individuals who sign up can literally toss around ideas, meet co-founders, build an initial product, and pitch it to mentors and investors all between a Friday afternoon and Sunday evening.

Members of the BBC thoroughly enjoyed the discussion and we are looking forward to keeping the meetings fresh by not only continuing our own presentations, but by hosting other guest speakers from the community.

betamore.com

technicallybaltimore.com/

BBC #4: 8/13/12

Presentation and Presenter: Erich & Brothers, Erich Raschid

Erich lead off the presentations with the idea for a full service painting company, called “Erich & Brothers.”  Erich’s experience in the painting business is well known among the BBC members.  His family has been in the business for 25 years, running “Finishing Touch Painting,” giving Erich more than enough opportunity to learn many aspects of the business during his summers in high school, college, and grad school.

Presentation and Presenter: Kickstarter, Mike Kirby

I’ve been investigating Kickstarter the last few months and am preparing an application for The Renewable Report.  It’s been a great experience so far and because several people had limited knowledge it existed, it seemed like a great site to browse over.

In short, it is a funding platform for creative projects.  Creators submit a project, whether it’s a film, book, video game or any other project you can imagine.  The creators set a funding goal and users donate money to help the creator work on the project.  Over $250m has been raised to fund thousands of projects, with most projects accounting for less than $10,000.

Presentation and Presenter: Baltimore Grand Prix Pics, Chris Diller & Mike Kirby

The Baltimore Grand Prix is coming to town again Labor Day weekend.  Last year, Chris & I put together an idea to create souvenir pictures of the race, showcasing city landmarks.  We didn’t follow through in 2011, but we are seriously considering it for 2012.  Over 160,000 people attended the race last year, and although the numbers don’t look to be near that, we still think there is an opportunity to sell pictures and make a few grand.  The basic idea is to create 1-3 drawings that can easily be copied and sell them to retailers for $10 a piece, with a retail price of $20.  If we can sell 50 pictures to 6 retailers in the next few weeks before the race, we’ll generate $3k in revenue with less than $600 in cost and 20-40 man hours of work.  If successful, Chris also has a launching pad to expand his talents into other local sports drawings.  Here is an example of a possible picture.

Presentation and Presenter: Ian Johnston, Bow Tie Bike Cabs

It’s always exciting when the BBC has presentations featuring businesses in their launch stage, and Ian did not disappoint here.  Currently, Baltimore does not have a bike cab service available in Federal Hill, Canton, or Fells Point.  Ian has spotted the opportunity and is exploring the market.  The idea is to start small with one Pedicab run by Ian on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights.  If the first few months are successful, Ian plans to expand the business with more cabs.

The real revenue opportunity comes with the launch of several cabs and reoccuring advertising dollars, but it all starts with a small test run with one cab.  Ian has secured a cab from Main Street Pedicabs and hopes to have it delivered in late August/Early September.  He see’s Ravens games as an early opportunity to drive business.

Some of the topics we discussed included: costs, marketing with social media, expanding the business, advertising opportunities, potential routes, seasonal revenue issues, unique marketing opportunities, storing the bikes, insurance, and steps taken so far.

Here is the concept for the drivers’ uniforms with the logo Ian has created for the business.