The Tuesday night Boulder Denver New Tech Meetup hit an attendance milestone with an audience count of around 450, with standing room only in the Wittemyer Courtroom and an overflow of forty-four attendees watching a live video stream from a classroom elsewhere in the building. About thirty percent of the audience indicated it was their first BDNT Meetup, signaling that the organization – which last month began hosting a monthly meeting in Denver – has yet to be discovered by many community technologists.
Brad Bernthal, Director of Entrepreneurial Initiatives for Silicon Flatirons, began the evening by outlining a project the CU Law School has taken up on behalf of the Governor’s Innovation Council. Sometime soon Governor Ritter and a collection of Colorado’s technology luminaries will travel to California to present the case to high tech companies, entrepreneurs, and venture capital firms to relocate to the Centennial State. Key to this project is the Wiki on Information Communications Technology (ICT) Entrepreneurship in Colorado, which is a community-generated online resource describing the state’s deep bench of existing companies, educational feedstock, and technology-friendly tax policy. Bernthal asked those in attendance to contribute to the ICT wiki in order to bolster Colorado’s already strong claim for these coastal innovators.
Dan Zitting of Audit Confirmations promised “the most boring application” ever presented at the New Tech Meetup, but instead delivered a solid presentation of a simple concept with a clear business model (i.e. revenue source). Zitting, a Certified Public Accountant (CPA), came up with the idea to put the audit confirmation process online. For the benefit non-CPAs, during audits accountants must verify a firm’s account balances with the company’s banking institution(s). This process is presently accomplished with paper forms shuttled between the client and banks, all laboriously coordinated by the CPAs. With the help of programmer Ben Rubenstein (who was attracted to the project because “it was not the next Facebook”), Audit Confirmations has put the entire process online, enabling both clients and banks to fill out and transfer forms on the web, with the accountant tracking the process via an online dashboard. While the system saves time on all fronts, banks have seemed the most resistant to adoption. The company is currently charging $4.95 per account, but plans to evaluate sales and marketing efforts including pricing.
Elizabeth Kuduer described MyUSearch.com as the eHarmony of college matchmaking. Essentially, students fill out an online questionnaire – which can range from 15 to 30 questions in length – and are then given a list of colleges best fitting their personal preferences. According to Kudeur, what differentiates the company’s service is that matches are provided in an unbiased way, as opposed to including colleges that pay for placement among results – a common practice on competing sites. The company’s main revenue source will be selling the “leads” offered by these prospective applicants to the matched colleges, as well as advertising. Beyond the undergraduate market, MyUSearch hopes to expand into graduate and certificate programs, which Kudeur expects may be more lucrative as there is less competition.
Espor offers technology to help coaches manage game film and practices. The company’s eAnalyze product allows the tagging of game film with specific actions by a player (e.g. passes, shots, goals) which enables simple access to the surrounding clips of video. Currently within the Espor system, tagging must be done manually via a computer interface (a process which usually takes about 1.5X as long as the game), but the company is working on voice recognition as well as potentially tagging jerseys with GPS technology. The company also offers an eAssist product that enables coaches to easily create animations of plays and drills. Jason Graves called the company a “pseudo-startup” because although the company is new to the US, it has an established presence in Europe. The company currently offers products for soccer, volleyball, and basketball and would like to expand into lacrosse and hockey. Graves noted the technology, which has an entry price point from $3000 to $5000, as suitable for “mid-market” teams including colleges, clubs and potentially high schools.
Tendril Networks’ Kent Dickson impressed the audience by shutting off and restarting a fan remotely from his laptop. What lies behind this simple demonstration is a robust system that enables residential energy management by utilities and consumers. Tendril, which is focused on energy efficiency, offers software (Energy Ecosystem Server) that can be accessed by both utility companies and consumers over the internet as well as devices to track energy use in the home. This system allows customers to manage their power consumption and can be employed by utilities in need of power management. With the devices, it is possible for a utility to remotely cut power to a specific device within in a home if the system is overburdened (consumers must give permission and receive reduced rates for allowing this intervention). The company is currently involved in several trials and plans to initially sell its products through utility companies.
The BDNT is designed to provide a time and place for technologists and entrepreneurs to showcase the new technology developing in the region. The event is sponsored by Silicon Flatirons, ViaWest, w3w3, and Holme Roberts & Owen. The next meeting will take place at the Tivoli Student Union, 900 Auraria Parkway, Denver, on March 23rd at 6:30. If you seek to attend please register for the event here.
