Winter Update 2011 - Entrepreneurship at Duke

By Howie Rhee

There's a lot to report.

It's been a great Fall here in Durham, for entrepreneurship activities at Duke.

• Over 100 Duke student teams competed in the 6th Annual Elevator Pitch Competition (part of the Duke Start-Up Challenge and DukeGEN). That's a new record (previous high was around 70 teams). Great spread of years (from Freshmen to Medical School Residents), and schools (Pratt, Fuqua, Trinity, Nicholas, Law, Medicine, Graduate School).

• Will Pearson '01 of mental_floss, gave a great talk at the Elevator Pitch Finals, where our 19 finalists pitched in Reynolds Theater of the Bryan Center (a new venue for us). 

• DukeGEN held it's 4th DukeGEN Angel Pitch Event, our second in New York City.  (We also held our 3rd event in San Francisco in June). Summing the 3rd and 4th events, about 80 Duke startups applied to pitch, and 12 actually pitched to investors.

• The Program for Entrepreneurs (P4E) started it's fourth cohort with 16 teams (a new record).  They started the first course, New Ventures 1, in mid-October.  About 8 of the teams were IT/Internet/App based. 

• InCube got off the ground and the students have moved in.  Congrats to Sid and everyone involved. 
• The Innovation and Entrepreneurship Task Force (led by Kimberly Jenkins) has formed, met twice, and put together some recommendations on entrepreneurship at Duke going forward.  The response to join the Task Force was really positive, and things are looking bright for Duke's future.

• We hosted five Duke speakers for DukeGEN: Live from Silicon Valley.  This was a departure from our previous years' Education Series, and all speakers joined us live via Skype.  We tested Skype as an experiment, and the feedback was overall positive.  Videos of their talks are available on YouTube.  Speakers included:
• Jason Freedman (Flightcaster, Y Combinator)
• Howie Liu (Etacts, Y Combinator)
• Ryan Spoon (Polaris Ventures, Dogpatch Labs, beRecruited)
• Matt Koidin (Read It Later, TeamRankings)
• Congrats to Duke alumni Jesse Lipson (ShareFile), Justin Segall & Yoav Lurie (SimpleEnergy), Kathryn Minshew (The Daily Muse), David Goldberg (Contently).  All had exits or closed on funding.
• Published DukeGEN interviews, at www.dukegen.com/profiles, with:
• Jeff Kovick '11 - Co-founder and CEO of Medici Medical Technologies
• Evan McCormick '11 - Founder and CEO of Investors Mosaic
• Brian Hamilton '90 - Co-founder of Sageworks
• Vikas Narula '07 - Co-founder of Keyhubs
• Glen Caplan '02 - Co-founder of Joystick Labs
• David Mauney '90 - Co-founder and Managing Director of De Novo Ventures
• Brooks Bell '02 - Founder and CEO of Brooks Bell Interactive
• Liz Reaves Walker '05 - Senior Product Manager at LinkedIn
• Over 300 Duke students joined the DukeGEN Startup Matchmaker Directory

Looking forward to having a great Spring.  Each semester we get a little better, and the goal is to continue to improve, and at the same time, continue at a sustainable pace.

--
Howie Rhee '04 is working on helping Duke be one of the best environments for students interested in entrepreneurship.  Follow him on Twitter @howierhee

Successful 4th DukeGEN Angel Pitch Event

Summer has come and gone and the semester is in full swing. We've hosted lots of entrepreneurship events including our 7th DukeGEN Multi-City Networking Event, the Program for Entrepreneurs (P4E) and the DukeGEN: Live from Silicon Valley speaker series.

On October 12, 2011, we held another successful DukeGEN Angel Pitch Event, our fourth overall, and the second one in New York City.

A slight drizzle in Manhattan didn't stop the attendees from coming out. The room was packed, the audience was energetic, the pitches were great, and the panel, again, did an excellent job.

About 80 Duke alumni came and filled up the room at DogPatch Labs.

Here's who pitched:

Showcase Company

• SimpleEnergy (Boulder, CO) - Justin Segall, Duke '05 (Business Partner: Yoav Lurie, Duke '05)
SimpleEnergy is changing how millions of people save energy by revolutionizing how utilities engage their customers. We leverage our experience in the energy industry and combine leading behavioral science and the tools of the modern, social web to engage customers and get the results regulators demand.

SimpleEnergy has recently raised their first round of financing and were invited by DukeGEN to showcase their company at this event, to help educate the audience members.

Pitch Competition

• myDrugCosts (Research Triangle Park, NC) - Dan, Pollard, Duke ‘92 - dan@mydrugcosts.com
myDrugCosts, Inc. operates a software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform based on a proprietary database of drug costs and savings options.

• ShelfRelief.com (Durham, NC) - Tito Bohrt, Duke ‘13  - tito.bohrt@duke.edu
ShelfRelief is a combination of Craigslist and Amazon. Connecting students within a university to let them sell their books to one another.

• CRE-DASHBOARD (Washington, D.C.) - Jill Homan, Duke ‘06 - jill.homan@gmail.com
CRE-DASHBOARD aggregates commercial real estate and economic data to create an investment dashboard for commercial real estate professionals to make better decisions - a super-charged Zillow for commercial real estate (CRE).

• CareProsper (New York City) - George Mathew, Duke ‘03 - george_mathews@hotmail.com
CareProsper makes Personal Health Records (PHR) work, by combining an incentivized PHR with a membership rewards program.

• Perfect Beauty (San Francisco) - Daisy Jing, Duke ‘11 - daiserz@gmail.com
Perfect Beauty creates a customized set of reviews for beauty products, so when a user searches for a review on a product, she can filter the results based on her profile so only those reviews that are relevant for her appear in the results.

• The Daily Muse (New York, NY) - Kathryn Minshew, Duke ‘08 - kmminshew@gmail.com
The Daily Muse brings smart content to young, career-focused women.  We are not Cosmo; instead, we focus on the central needs of many highly educated, ambitious young women today.

And here's who was on the panel:

• Peter Flint, Polaris Ventures and Dogpatch Labs
• Rob Go '01, NextView Ventures
• Thomas Lehrman '95, Alta Investors

(Phin Barnes was also schedule and helped select the teams, but had an unexpected conflict the night of the event)

And here's who attended:

• RSVP list on LinkedIn

Audience voted and asked questions of all the teams:

Audience Choice went to:


The Daily Muse - Kathryn Minshew

Judges went to convene and came back to deliver the results:

Judges 2nd Runner Up:
My Drug Costs - Dan Pollard

Judges 1st Runner Up:
ShelfRelief.com - Tito Bohrt

Judges Winner:
The Daily Muse - Kathryn Minshew

Prize:

• Consultation with Josh Felser '86 '90, Co-founder at Freestyle Capital
• Send top pitches to to Naval Ravikant at AngelList for review

Video:  You can watch the recording on Ustream.

Photos: The photos of the event are up on Picasa

Thank you to our volunteers!

• Jason Begleiter, Trinity ‘09
• Jason Ethier, ‘10
• Shalav Gupta, Fuqua ’10
• Alex Guttler, Fuqua’11
• Can Kuterdem, Fuqua '09
• Tom Powell, Fuqua ‘09
• Niraj Tailor

Posted by Howie Rhee '04

Event run by Howie Rhee '04 and Jozef Krakora '10, Co-chairs of DukeGEN

Great 3rd DukeGEN Angel Pitch Event in San Francisco

We held a successful DukeGEN Angel Event last night, hosted at Rocket Space and sponsored by SNR Denton (thanks to Richard Allan Horning '69) and SVB (thanks to Steve Allan '08).

The room was packed, the audience was energetic, the pitches were great, and the panel did an excellent job.

About 120 Duke alumni came and filled up the room. 

The full set of pictures can be found here: https://picasaweb.google.com/hwr2duke/DukeGEN3rdAngelPitchEvent#

Here's who pitched:

• • CommuterRx - Commuter benefits, fueled by Android
  • Team Lead: Benjamin Picard '07
  • Location: Fairfax, CA
  • Dynamo Micropower - Cheap power dense distributed power
  • Team Lead: Hardy Shen '10
  • Location: Sunnyvale, CA
  • Website: http://dynamo-micropower.com/
  • Happy Toy Machine - Design your own toys online
  • Team Lead: Scott Schube '93
  • Location: Milpitas, CA
  • Website: http://www.happytoymachine.com/
  • LoudSauce - crowdfunded media buying platform
  • Team Lead: Colin Mutchler '99
  • Location: San Francisco, CA
  • Website: http://www.loudsauce.com
  • Rentcycle - OpenTable for product rentals
  • Team Lead: Tim Hyer '05
  • Location: San Francisco, CA
  • Website: http://www.rentcycle.com/
  • Ribbons - enable earnest friend job recommendations
  • Team Lead: Anthony Bishopric '08
  • Location: San Francisco, CA
  • Website: http://rbbns.com
  • Youbibi - China Travel Search 2.0
  • Team Lead: Kai Wang '08
  • Location: Shenzhen, China
  • Website: http://www.youbibi.com
  
  And here's who was on the panel:
  
  
  
  • Jim Scheinman T '88 of Maven Ventures, his early stage investment fund.  With over 15 years experience, Jim is a serial entrepreneur, angel investor, and adviser to consumer internet and mobile start-ups.  He is a pioneer in social networking and engagement marketing.  Jim is best known for his role as employee number one at Bebo, the third largest social network when it was acquired by AOL in early 2008 for $850M.  He was also the first business employee at Friendster.  Maven Ventures was the first investor in Social Gold which sold to Google in 2010 & is currently an investor/adviser at Tango, the leading mobile video call platform; and PageOnce, the leading mobile personal finance app.  
  • Josh Felser T '86, B '90 of Freestyle Capital, an early stage venture capital fund designed to fill the void between retreating angels and venture capitalists moving into later stage investments.  Josh is a seed investor and serial entrepreneur. He is the co-founder of Freestyle Capital, Spinner (first Internet music service, sold to AOL for $320mm), Grouper/Crackle (video sharing service, sold to Sony for $65mm) & FYILiving.com (health information, launched in April 2010). He is also on the board of Duke's Center for Entrepreneurship.
    
  • Ryan Spoon T '03 of Polaris Ventures, a venture capital firm specializing in seed and early stage investments in companies engaged in the information technology and life sciences sectors.  Ryan was the founder of beRecruited, the nation's number one online networking destination for high school student-athletes seeking recruitment from college coaches and universities.  beRecruited was acquired in 2007.  Ryan worked for four years at eBay where he focused on user acquisition and launched and ran Kijiji (eBay's U.S. classified advertisements site).  He also served as VP of Marketing at Widgetbox, a widget distribution platform.
  • Aaron Patzer E '02, founder and CEO of Mint, a free, simple, and secure personal finance web application which consolidates your financial life in one place.  Aaron became the Vice President and General Manager of the Personal Finance Group at Intuit when that company acquired Mint.com for US$170M in November 2009.  Prior to Mint, Aaron was a Lead Architect as Nascentric and the technical lead of the San Jose office.  Aaron was selected by Fortune Magazine to the Top 40 Entrepreneurs Under 40 in 2009 and Money Magazine named him as one of the top 8 Money Heroes of 2008.  He has twelve patents issued or pending to his name.
  
  
  
  
• And here's who attended: http://events.linkedin.com/DukeGEN-Early-Stage-Investor-Panel/pub/576336

After the pitches, the judges convened, and the audience had a Q&A with the teams.

Then, the audience voted:

• Audience Choice Winner: RentCycle

Then, the judges came back, gave feedback to each team (in front of the audience), and then announced their results.

• Judges' 3rd Runner Up:
• LoudSauce
• Judges' 2nd Runner Up:
• Happy Toy Machine
• Judges' 1st Runner Up:
• Rentcycle
• Winner:
• Youbibi.com

Congrats to Kai Wang '08 and his business partner Steven Pang.

Youbibi will be introduced to three venture capitalists by Josh Felser.

Presented by:
■ Michael S. Cann Jr. T '95 - Event Lead
■ Matt Koidin B '05 - Operations Lead
■ Shea DiDonna B '10
■ Basil Enan T '03
■ Howie Rhee B '04

Thanks again to SNR Denton and SVB!

Posted by Howie Rhee '04, Co-chair of DukeGEN

12th Annual Duke Start-up Challenge Grand Finale!

Overview
On Friday, April 8th, we hosted the Grand Finale of the 12th Annual Duke Start-Up Challenge.  This event was a showcase of entrepreneurship at Duke University. We had the seven finalists pitch for one-minute each to give our students, alumni, and online viewers a chance to see some of the most interesting startups coming out of Duke.

In addition to being a showcase, we awarded the $50,000 Grand Prize, a runner-up award (selected by a panel of judges prior to this event), audience choice award, and a $1,000 speaker’s choice award. A special thanks goes out Rich Lee and Melissa Bernstein for their generous contributions which helped make tonight’s prize money possible.

The evening began as hundreds of spectators welcomed J.B. Pritzker '87: a remarkable Duke alum, venture capitalist, philanthropist, and a champion of humanitarian work worldwide. After introductions from hosts Tim Canavan (Nicholas/Fuqua '12) and Vidhan Agrawal (Pratt '12), Pritzker addressed the audience with insightful lessons from his lifetime of entrepreneurship.

About J.B. Pritzker - Keynote Speaker
J.B. Pritzker ’87 is an entrepreneur, technology venture capitalist and philanthropist. With degrees from Duke University (AB ’87), and Northwestern University School of Law (JD ’90), Pritzker is an attorney who has used his business, law and civic leadership ability to become a leading advocate for civil rights and young children in poverty. He founded one of the Midwest’s leading venture capital firms, New World Ventures, and co-leads The Pritzker Group, a private investment firm. Mr. Pritzker is also a principal owner of Hyatt Hotels Corporation and TransUnion Corporation. Also under his leadership, the Pritzker Family Foundation is one of the nation’s leading philanthropic organizations for early childhood education and development. He has also applied his entrepreneurial efforts as a tireless advocate for human and civil rights on a national and international scale; serving as Chairman of the Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center and a principal funder of the Cambodia Tribunal Monitor. He is a member of the Illinois State Bar Association and Chicago Bar Association and lives in Chicago with his wife and children.

J.B. had four lessons to share

1. Be tenacious to the point of sheer lunacy.
2. Don't let your setbacks and the cynics define you.  Let your actions do the talking.
3. Find your own path.
4. Remember that leadership matters.

The Pitches
Each team had exactly 1 minute each to convince the judges and audience why their start-up is worthy of thousands of dollars of investment and prizes. Tonight’s Finalists were:

70Sesame
A social mobile platform combining group messaging capabilities with target-driven coupon delivery designed for operation in China. Team Lead: Stephanie Chang, Pratt '11

HyTower Energy Storage
The HyTower system converts out of service water towers into power storage units. Their pumped-hydro system builds on proven technology to deliver safe, reliable energy storage at higher efficiency and lower cost than competing technologies. Company is planning to enter the $1.5B annual market for energy storage. Team Lead: Matt Kaufmann, Nicholas/Fuqua '11

Medici Medical Technologies
Medici develops innovative devices to restore control to women suffering from urinary incontinence. The company plans to provide a high control and high convenience solution for the 28 million Americans who suffer from urinary incontinence $20B is spent annually in this market. Team Lead: Jeff Kovick, Fuqua '11

Sidewalk
Sidewalk helps customers and businesses by uniting them together with time sensitive deals. Sidewalk makes it incredibly simple for local merchants to increase customer traffic and by helping people spend wiser. Team Lead: Rhianon DeLeeuw, Fuqua '11

ShelfRelief
The most efficient way to buy and sell university textbooks among college students. Team Lead: Tito Bohrt, Trinity '13

Accion Emprendedora USA
Accion Emprendedora will offer business management education, training and coaching for Hispanic entrepreneurs in North Carolina to help them overcome the barriers they have for growth and economic development. Team Lead: Ignacio Torres, Sanford '11

E-Clean
Plans to reduce hospital acquired infections through utilizing RFID tracking which will increase human hand hygiene compliance. Team Lead: Jessica Liu, Pratt '11

The Winning Teams
The judge’s choice grand prize was chosen by the judges of the investor pitch finals competition, and the audience choice prize was determined in real time via text message voting.

Winner of the Audience Choice Award:

Medici Medical Technologies

Winner of the $1,000 Speaker’s Choice Award:
Sidewalk

Runner-up to the Grand Prize:
70Sesame

AND THE WINNER OF THE $50,000 JUDGE’S CHOICE GRAND PRIZE:
HyTower Energy Storage
Thanks to Rich Lee for enabling us to double our grand prize

Congratulations HyTower Energy Storage and to all of tonight’s winners and competitors throughout Duke Start-up Challenge XI. And special thanks to contributors Rich Lee (Former CEO of Hosted Solutions) and Melissa Bernstein (Co-founder and Co-CEO of Melissa and Doug) and to all of the generous supporters and sponsors of Entrepreneurship at Duke. See you next year!

Want more?

• Watch a recording of this event on Ustream
• See the full set of pictures
• Read the article in the Chronicle
• Stay informed about our many events around the world through DukeGEN
• And keep tabs on our on-campus events through Entrepreneurship At Duke

--
Written by Trevor Scott
Edited by Howie Rhee '04
Thanks to Hamid Ali for the live-tweeting

Investor Pitch Finals, part of the 11th Annual Duke Start-Up Challenge

After months of preparation, practicing pitches, and fine-tuning business plans, tonight’s entrepreneurship competition at the Investor Pitch Finals Event hosted the final seven Duke University startup teams, each competing for the $50,000 Grand Prize.

Hosted by Tim Canavan (Nicholas/Fuqua '12) and Vidhan Agrawal (Pratt '12) at the Fuqua School of Business, the evening was a great success. From the original 110 Duke student startup teams who competed at the beginning of February, the top seven were allowed to pitch before the event’s live panel of judges and a packed auditorium.

A special feature of the evening was an outstanding keynote address from Melissa Bernstein '87; a member of the judge’s panel and Co-founder/Co-CEO of Melissa & Doug, LLC, one of the leading toy companies.

Competition Details:
Each student-led team was given 7 minutes to pitch their company idea to the judges, followed by 3 minutes for questions and answers. The decision of the $50,000 Judge’s Choice Grand Prize Award and additional cash prizes will be decided after the event and revealed at the Grand Finale Event on April 8th. In addition to the Grand Prize, three $10,000 cash prizes have already been awarded for winners of the best in each category: Undergraduate Led Start-up, Women Led Start-up, and Products and Services Start-up. And for the winner of the best Social Enterprise Start-up, a special award of $2,500 has been awarded.


The Finalists:

70Sesame
A social mobile platform combining group messaging capabilities with target-driven coupon delivery designed for operation in China. Team Lead: Stephanie Chang, Pratt '11

HyTower Energy Storage
The HyTower system converts out of service water towers into power storage units. Their pumped-hydro system builds on proven technology to deliver safe, reliable energy storage at higher efficiency and lower cost than competing technologies. Company is planning to enter the $1.5B annual market for energy storage. Team Lead: Matt Kaufmann, Fuqua '11

Medici Medical Technologies
Medici develops innovative devices to restore control to women suffering from urinary incontinence. The company plans to provide a high control and high convenience solution for the 28 million Americans who suffer from urinary incontinence $20B is spent annually in this market. Team Lead: Jeff Kovick, Fuqua '11

Sidewalk
Sidewalk helps customers and businesses by uniting them together with time sensitive deals. Sidewalk makes it incredibly simple for local merchants to increase customer traffic and by helping people spend wiser. Team Lead: Rhianon DeLeeuw, Fuqua '11

ShelfRelief
The most efficient way to buy and sell university textbooks among college students. Team Lead: Tito Bohrt, Trinity '13

Accion Emprendedora USA
Accion Emprendedora will offer business management education, training and coaching for Hispanic entrepreneurs in North Carolina to help them overcome the barriers they have for growth and economic development. Team Lead: Ignacio Torres, Sanford '11

E-Clean
Plans to reducing hospital acquired infections through utilizing RFID tracking to increase human hand hygiene compliance. Team Lead: Jessica Liu, Pratt '11

Tonight’s Judges:
Melissa Bernstein - ('87) Co-founder/Co-CEO of Melissa & Doug, LLC.

Bill Geary - Partner at North Bridge Venture Partners.

Jack Egan - Egan-Managed Capital.

Geoff Kanter - (89) Managing Director, MK Media Ventures.

Rich Lee - Former CEO of Hosted Solutions.

Karen LeVert - CEO of Southeast TechInventures.

Tom McMurray - Ph.D ('76 '78 '80) Marine Ventures Foundation. Former Partner at Sequoia Capital.

Pictures of the event are available here:
https://picasaweb.google.com/hwr2duke/DukeStartUpChallengeInvestorPitchFinals2011#
Photos taken by Olgun Kukrer

Next up:
Be sure to join us next week on Friday April 8th at 7:30pm for our final event of the year – the Grand Finale Event! This memorable night will include the naming of the winning teams for each of the awards, and feature world renowned philanthropist and investor J.B. Pritzker (’87) as the keynote speaker. You won’t want to miss it!

--
Written by Trevor Scott
Edited by Howie Rhee '04