Finding Free WiFi

MIT Startup Demo Company Shout-Out

Last week I was honored to be a judge at the MIT (Northwest Chapter) Enterprise Forum's 'Startup Demo' Spring Event.  We won the fall demo event last year...and thus I got to see what life was like on the other side.

I was blown away by the companies...business model aside (it was a demo event...they didn't have to get into business nuts and bolts and instead simply were asked to make us go 'wow), people were building some really cool stuff.

My takes:

The Winner:

ForWord Input:

Building software that allows you to input text using handwriting methods on a QWERTY keypad interface.  Sounds weird, but the guy FLEW through the demo and only messed up once or twice...PLUS, what was the most important to me, was that even post mess-up the revision process was FAR better than anything I've ever used.

Next Step: Get 20 18 year old girls in a room, pay them each $20 for an hour and have them text all their friends using the interface.  Chart the response.  This could be big.

My Runnerup:

Interview Studio.com

Extremely well designed web service aimed at changing how people apply/interview/recruit/choose applicants for companies.  Crowded space but looks like it could be the winner.

Next Step: Figure out a big, bold solution to keep it from becoming the next Monster.com with 5,000 applicants for every job opportunity.  

In no other order:

Ameritocracy:

Political user generated content site, looking at statements, facts, reports, etc edited by the American  people. A democratized version of Obama's new website.  

Next Step: Launch today while the political trail is hot.

Diagnosis Plus

A new way using the web for people to gain more information on their chronic illnesses; helps both doctors and patients with screening and management of such diseases.

Next Step: Make the back end extremely functional while making the UI extremely simple, elegant, and obvious to people who don't generally use the computer for much more than email and photo sharing. 

Hydrovolts

Great demo by the founder.  One of those save the world companies...takes small turbines, puts them in irrigation ditches, rivers, channels etc and generates power.  Apparently a lot of power

Next Step: Test.  Generate power.  Save world.

Snowflake ITM.

The company of the fearless MIT NW leader, I call it basecamp on steroids, but really it's a dynamic task management tool.

Next Step: They seem very close to launch....launch and make money.  Figure out how to make the switch from basecamp easy.

Starbucks Steps Up, It's Not All Free..But I'm Happy

Beautiful thing happened today.  Starbucks (thanks John Cook), announced that  they were leaving their hot spot contact with T-Mobile and switching to a free/paid model with AT&T.

If you use a starbucks card, you get 2 free hours.  An additional 2 hours is $3.99.  Monthly plans are $20, and give you access at any AT&T hotspot.

Almost a year ago I was hoping for this.  Many times I've been stuck in random parts of this city, random parts of the country, always able to find a starbucks but often unable to find another coffee shop.  When you run a web business it's tough to be offline.

Even 2 hours will be a big deal.  Thanks Howard.

Caffeinated Developers in Seattle

The SeattleTech Startups list had a thread recently discussing the best coffee shop for networking.  It's not a short list, but if you're in Seattle, and want some free wifi, check em out:

http://tinyurl.com/2y657u

Our Favorites (in no discernible order)
Trabant, 45th and the Ave (and new Pioneer Square location)
University Zoka, behind U-Village
University Bookstore Cafe, 43rd and the Ave (in the back, near the apparel)
Cafe on the Ave 42nd and the Ave (big tables, my favorite spot in the summer for shady outdoor seating)

At some point I'm going to go around and take pictures of the places where Athleon's been built.  Includes a lot of coffee shops, UW libraries, and kitchen tables.

List off the others top off my head at the moment: Starbucks: Both on the Ave, at Bell Square, 3 of the 5 (yes 5) in U Village, across from Nordstroms at Westlake, on Ballinger Way, Top of Queen Anne, Bremerton.  Tullys: in Wallingford, UDistrict, Belltown, Woodinville, Alki Beach, Tacoma, Lincoln Square.  Third Place Books in Lake Forest Park.  Kahili Coffee in Kirkland.  Brown Bag Cafe in Kirkland.  Cherry St. in Belltown.  Specialty's in the U-District.  Yunnie on the Ave.  Starlife on the Ave.  Cafe Umbria in Pioneer Square, Elliot Bay Book Company Pioneer Square.  Trabant in Pioneer Square.

Wow...that is a lot of tea/coffee or illegal use of the free Wifi.  Also, basically all of those outside of the U-District equal meeting places....that's a lot of meetings.

The coffee shop is definitely the new garage (and probably cheaper than rent and heating of such a place anyways) 

Coffee Shops in Seattle that Offer Free Wifi

Seems to be the definitive list...and places you can get a beer and do work in case tea just isn't doing it for ya.

Caffeinated and Unstrung

All the Lonley People Hanging Out In The Coffee Shop

From the Seattle Times, adlibed by Mark Driscoll of Mars Hill Church:

"Seattle has unleashed this weird phenomenon on the world called the coffee shop.  The coffee shop, thanks to Starbucks, is the place where socially isolated, lonely, needy people gather together to ignore one another.  All these lonely people go to the coffee shop to open their laptop and drink their burnt coffee and put in their ears their iPod so they can ignore one another...in community,"

Come See Athleon Demo

If you're in the greater Seattle area, the MIT Enterprise Forum of the Northwest is having a Startup Demo on December 13th, 2007, and we were lucky enough to get through the screening and be invited to demo what we're doing at Athleon.

It'll basically be a 5 minute round-up of how we started with a non-tech founder (who got hit in the head a lot), had an idea, found a genius tech guy, and built a product on two college kids budgets.

We'll then demo an Athleon network for 5 minutes.

Here's the link for the event.

Tickets are $25.00, which, outside of the free nPost events, are definitely the cheapest tickets of the Seattle entrepreneur community scene (it amazes me how expensive some entrepreneur events are).

If you can't make it or don't live up here, feel free to send me an email and I can take you through our products.