blog

Slipstream Labs Closes First Portfolio

Wed, 16 Dec 2009 15:11:12 +0100

Venture Development Firm to Nurture Slipstream I Startups

Phoenix, AZ, December 15, 2009 - Slipstream Labs (SSL), the Phoenix-based venture development firm, today announced the closing of its first portfolio, Slipstream I. The firm will be shift its focus to advising its current portfolio companies.

Since its founding in 2008, Slipstream Labs has engaged over 15 entrepreneurial companies to accelerate their development and increase their probability of success including: Athenium Learning, America's Hometown Heroes, Buildproof, Crisp Enterprises, Hopscotch Kids, Humshakal, HyLo, Next Generation Insurance Group and Kreeda Games. Of these, nine are commercially available today, five have received outside investment, and five have either completed or are in the process of completing significant strategic partnerships.

SSL's founding partners include Robert Wallace, Anil Jain and John Fees. In addition to advising Slipstream I startups, the partners will be focusing on developing new businesses that build on their base of experience with entrepreneurial companies.

Robert Wallace is founder and CEO of katallaxy, a commercialization and business development firm that approaches marketing as a strategic business issue - addressing everything from design to product development - and builds IP for itself and its clients. www.katallaxy.com
Anil Jain is launching BrightMonk Innovation, a new product development company with a global footprint that will specialize in the creation of entrepreneurial products and businesses. www.brightmonk.com
John Fees is co-founder and CEO of Next Generation Insurance Group, a national insurance sales and marketing firm that enables consumers and organizations to manage risk affordably with "right-fit" insurance products. www.nextgenins.com

"Entrepreneurship continues to thrive, even in this economy. We feel privileged to have helped build these outstanding companies," said Anil Jain, managing partner. "The entrepreneurs we work with are driving dramatic innovations across a wide variety of industries, from mobile to IT to natural cosmetics, which is both exciting and rewarding."

Managing partner Robert Wallace added, "We have come to a natural inflection point for Slipstream Labs. The entrepreneurs we support are beginning the journey of building successful companies, having transformed innovative ideas into operating businesses."

"Just since 2008, Slipstream Labs has catalyzed a great deal of value for both entrepreneurs and investors," said venture partner John Fees. "I look forward to taking part in future venture acceleration endeavors."

About Slipstream Labs
Slipstream Labs is a venture development firm that works closely with entrepreneurs, innovators and investors to build and grow promising companies. Slipstream Labs provides a concentrated set of business-building services to start-ups and growth companies - comprehensive venture development spanning business planning, strategic marketing, product management and strategic business development. www.SlipstreamLabs.com

Slipstream Labs LLC

Robert Wallace
rwallace@slipstreamlabs.com

Anil Jain
ajain@slipstreamlabs.com

America's Hometown Heroez Launches Demo of Virtual World

Mon, 19 Oct 2009 22:12:39 +0100

Slipstream client, America's Hometown Heroez has just posted the introductory demo of its amazing, educational and fun virtual world for kids. More to come soon, contact them if you want to learn more or want to be sent updates on the game's development. Check it out.

Startups’ Achilles’ Heel – Product Management

Tue, 29 Sep 2009 18:19:18 +0100

In our work with startups and new ventures, we've come to realize a common thread (in most cases) of the companies we work with - the lack of, need for, and misunderstanding of product management. I don't know why startups don't think the role is important, nor do I understand why the default position for a lot of companies is that the technology leader is the head of product. That thinking leads to wasted resources, and more importantly a product that is unlikely to fill the market need effectively.

There's an article in today's Pluggd.in that analyzes this very idea in Indian startups, and makes the point, correctly, that a lot of the startups they see fail are often because of the lack of product management. Here's an excerpt:

"Here’s how it typically works – someone with an idea gets some seed funding, and the first thing he does is hire some engineers to start building something. The founder will have some definite ideas on what he wants, and he’ll typically act as product manager and often product designer, and the engineering team will then go from there...

...After 6 months or so, the engineers have things in sort of an alpha or beta state, and that’s when they first show the product around. Things rarely go well in this first viewing, and the team starts scrambling. The run-rate is high because there’s now an engineering team building this thing as fast as they can, so the money is running out, and the product isn’t there. Maybe the company gets more funding and a chance to get the product right, but often they don't...

...I continue to be amazed at how many startups just jump right into implementation, but I think we’re such an engineering-driven culture that we just naturally start there.

But any startup has to realize that everything starts with the right product – so the first order of business is to figure out what that is before burning through $500K or more in seed funding.

I believe this model applies beyond startups to much larger companies as well. The difference is that bigger companies are generally able to underwrite the several iterations it takes to get to a useful product, but startups often can’t."

Bottom line, it all comes down to providing value to a customer: understanding what value means to them, communicating that value proposition, and then delivering the value in the actual product or service. Product management's role is to translate customer needs, wants and desires into products and services that are positioned, priced and promoted appropriately. The technology lead by definition can't be in this role - its a conflict of interest and it isn't their strength. And the Sales team shouldn't do it either, or you'll have tremendous thrash in the development and a misaligned product.

Thank you Ashish at Pluggd.in for the great article

Phoenix Design Week - The best of Phoenix design all in one place

Tue, 29 Sep 2009 17:12:26 +0100

Phoenix Design Week will have its inaugural event from October 21st-25th. The week will feature galleries during the week, showing local work of graphic, interactive and motion designers. Among the exhibits will be a display of client rejected logos, a paper sculpture showcase and a collaborative poster show with work from students from 4 different local design programs. Friday night will kick off the weekend with the Typophile Film Fest at MadCap Theatres. The typography themed short film fest is only being shown in a few select cities, with Phoenix being lucky enough to be included in this exclusive list. The weekend conference is being held at the Phoenix Convention Center in the heart of downtown Phoenix. The list of speakers includes the national president of the AIGA, Debbie Millman, Chaz Maviyane-Davies the "guerilla of graphic design", Eric Hillerns, Bobby Solomon, Bennet Peji and many others. The panels, presentations, workshops and roundtable discussions held during the weekend conference are meant to bring together the design community in an unprecedented way.

When: October 21st to October 25th

Where:

Wednesday, Thursday, Friday: Terralever, Santy Integrated, The Clarendon, Kitchen Sink Studios
Wednesday Night: Santy Integrated
Thursday Night: Terralever
Friday Night: Madcap Theaters
Saturday: Phoenix Convention Center
Saturday Night: The Clarendon
Sunday: Phoenix Convention Center

Check out the Phoenix Design Week website

Crisp Enterprises launches new website

Mon, 28 Sep 2009 21:49:35 +0100

Crisp Enterprises launched its new website today. In addition to the snazzy new design, you can learn more about the fashion innovation company's roots, its team and advisors, and the ground-breaking IP the company has in development.

Check out the site at WearCrisp.com

Hopscotch Kids Website Launches; Kid-centric, non-toxic nail polishes for kids now available

Thu, 17 Sep 2009 15:53:50 +0100

Hopscotch Kids' website is now open for business! Check out their kid-centric, all natural, non-toxic kids cosmetics line which consists of eight "Water Colors" (non-toxic, water-based nail polishes). You can also purchase the polishes in birthday and party packages. Make sure you also sign up for their club as well.

Humshakal Facebook App Live - Now you can find your look-alike on Facebook

Wed, 16 Sep 2009 15:12:08 +0100

Check out the new Facebook App for Humshakal. Now you can see who looks like you or your friends via the popular social network and share with all your Facebook friends. Or, of course, you can visit Humshakal's website.

About Humshakal:

Humshakal is a place to discover more about yourself, by understanding the similarities you have with others. “Humshakal” means “look-alike” in Hindi. For our users, we utilize our patent-pending process and technology to find their “humshakals” – both their “look-alikes” and their “think-alikes.” Humshakal let’s you discover people just like you that you would otherwise never know about:

1. Maybe you want to see if your friend looks like a certain celebrity.
2. Or maybe you’d like to see if your newborn cousin shares a “family resemblance.”
3. Or maybe you’re looking for that special someone to develop a deeper relationship.
4. Or maybe you are interested in football, Shahrukh Khan movies, and know every song by Shayan Italia. Wouldn’t it be great to find someone else who likes those things too?

Humshakal is only site on web that helps people make all of those connections, and more. We are the only site that creates matches based on both an aesthetic and interest level – enabling connections between people in a very never before possible. How does it work? Simple. People come to Humshakal.com, online or via mobile phone, upload a photo of themselves (or someone else), and our recognition technology matches that photo with those in our database – including celebrities and other users. If you would like to connect at a deeper level, and find your “think-alikes,” you simply become a member of the Humshakal community.

Hopscotch Kids Blog Launches

Sat, 12 Sep 2009 15:59:03 +0100

Hopscotch Kids, a kid centric cosmetic line that is completely non-toxic and natural (and a Slipstream Labs client), just launched their blog - and in true Hopscotch fashion it is full of some of the cutest kids you've ever seen. Hopscotch holds tea parties where young girls can come and play and get their nails done. Sounds like fun. If you're interested in learning more about it check out their blog.

Full website including online ordering coming this week!

The Internet in India - Don't let temporarily small penetration fool you

Fri, 28 Aug 2009 18:16:34 +0100

"A general sentiment about Indian Internet market is that owing to dismal Internet penetration, things just aren’t happening. The TAM (total addressable market) is too less to allow multiple business categories and of course, multiple players."

Not so fast. Think about the following:

1/3 of all railway tickets sold in India are sold online.
1/3 of trades on the NSE and 1/4 of the NSE's daily turnover come from online retail platforms

Which is why Slipstream Labs is committed to helping companies (clients and our own ventures) launch and develop business in India (Humshakal, Flypaper, PicDial, EyeAlike, Alma), and vice versa (Kreeda Games, Multunus).

From Pluggd.in

TRi-Behavioral Rebranded as Atheneum Learning; Launches new e-learning website

Fri, 28 Aug 2009 18:03:52 +0100

We've recently completed our rebranding of Slipstream Labs client, TRi-Behavioral - the company name is now Atheneum Learning, with the mission to translate research into practice for behavioral health. The companies new website also launched late last week.

While Atheneum will soon be adding new subject matter experts to its stable of thought-leaders, the first e-learning products are provided by Atheneum founder and President, Ed Neuhaus - focusing on his Flexible Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (FCBT). FCBT integrates cognitive behavioral theory and research along with psychotherapy and psychosocial treatment principles – transforming evidence-based knowledge into effective real-world treatment for patients with mood, anxiety, and personality disorders. The mission of the FCBT treatment is to diminish a patient’s suffering, improve functional capacities, and enhance quality of life and interpersonal connections.

Visit Atheneum Learning