A Startup Guy

Image by Nathan T. Baker via Flickr

The second Nashville Startup Weekend (NSW) will take place from October 9-11. I was fortunate to have taken part in the first NSW. Our team developed an iPhone game named Assassins. It was the only startup that actually ended up launching. However, the experience was fantastic for nearly everyone who participated in the event.

One of the coolest things about NSW is that you get the full experience of the startup. Some groups imploded, due to legal issues with their product or personality conflicts. Some found they simply needed way more startup capital than they could raise. And some simply required more of a commitment from the founders than they were willing to give. Every company had to deal with figuring out a revenue model, product development and marketing plans. All of this is stuff that every startup company deals with. And it was a great learning experience.

Unfortunately, I won’t be able to attend this year’s event (my wife and I are expecting our second litle startup), but many of the same great people involved in last year’s event are involved in this year’s. Anyone interested in startups should attend.

In local startup news, knowledge sharing network Moontoast has secured a $780,000 round of financing, accoring to Milt Capps of Venture Nashville Connections. Moontoast launched at the South by Southwest Interactive event in March. They are currently undergoing a private beta, according to their website, which is allowing them to gauge user feedback and tweak their system, which allows users to find and consult experts on any kind of problems or challenges they may be facing. According to their site, they expect to relaunch publicly in August 2009.

Moontoast recently announced the appointment of Stephan Collins (formerly of DoubleClick and Juris) as acting CEO and Marcus Whitney (former parter at Emma and founder of Remarkable Wit) as Chief Technology Officer.

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