It’s been a pretty busy summer and with the football season fast approaching, becoming more productive during the week is crucial. Thus, I bought a laptop exercise bike for my office from FitDesk. I gave it a test cycle and it was pretty sturdy, and most importantly, it was quiet. I intend to use it for minor computer tasks like reading my RSS feeds and blogging.

The cool thing is that it has a small footprint, folds up, and it wasn’t that expensive (about $200). My laptop is secured to the bike with provided rubber bands as you can see in the pictures below.

The first Startup Weekend Austin is set for the weekend of September 10-12th and will take place at CoSpace. I’ll be one of the Friday night speakers.

What: Startup Weekend Austin
Where: CoSpace, 911 West Anderson Lane #203, Austin, TX 78757
When: September 10th at around 5pm (the pitches will start a bit later)

Tickets are now on sale and can be purchased here. If you have not participated in a Startup Weekend before, check out the first-timer FAQs. Hashtag: #swaustin

Most, if not all, startups desire mentorship from those that have “been there before.” But have you thought of doing some mentoring yourself?

The Big Brothers/Big Sisters program is (always) in need of mentors… especially male mentors. Boys routinely wait over a year for for a big brother match. When I was a big brother, my little had been on the waiting list for 2 years.

The Dallas-Fort Worth program has over 3,000 kids waiting for a big brother or big sister match.

Here’s a typical story:

VIEW VIDEO

Read more about the impact you can impart here and FAQs. You can donate or even better, volunteer now.

Tech Wildcatters will be showcasing their first graduating class of startups July 29th @ 1pm.

Location: The Magnolia – 3699 McKinney Avenue, Dallas TX
Program:
1:00pm — Welcome and Introduction to Tech Wildcatters
1:30pm — Keynote by Charlie Feld
2:15pm — Break
2:30 pm — Presentations by the TechWildcatters Class:

CollegeJobConnect – better undergraduate recruitment
Image Vision Labs – cleaning up the cloud
Concepta Systems – virtual document management
Mobestream Media – mobile loyalty program management
Brand Protection Agency – retail price transparency for brands

4:30 pm — Networking Happy Hour at Lemon Bar (next door to the Magnolia)

You can attend by registering here.

For the past 2 years, Dallas Startup Happy Hour has hosted thousands of entrepreneurs who have made connections and even formed startups out of the event. Now it is time to mix it up and provide even more value to the Dallas startup community:

New Venue: Architel’s new facility in the North Tower of the Campbell Center (I’ve seen the plans for the new Architel facility and they are certified “sweet”.)

New Date: Last Wednesday of the Month, starting October 27.

New Format: Cocktails, Hors d’oeuvres, and a Speaker.

5pm – Cocktails, Food, and Networking
6pm – Program (Speaker)
630pm – Cocktails and Networking

(Read all the details here.)

Because of all the changes and improvements (and to get all future announcements regarding the speakers), we will all have to register on the newly created Meetup Site: Dallas Startup Happy Hour 2.0 Meetup

So take one minute and Register Now.

Startup Happy Hour is held the first Monday of every month and is open to all Dallas – Fort Worth area startup founders, startup employees, investors, and people thinking about doing a startup. The event was started by Alex Muse and has been connecting entrepreneurs with employees, co-founders and angel investors since 2008. The free drinks are an added perk.

As a courtesy to everyone in attendance, we ask service providers to not just show up to pitch their services.

Startup Happy Hour is sponsored by Architel and CoHabitat.

Street parking is free and available on Thomas Avenue and Routh Street. View Map

Date: June 7, 2010
Time: 5:30pm – 8:00pm
Location: CoHabitat, 2517 Thomas Ave, Dallas TX

RSVP on Facebook or Plancast (or both).

Brad Feld will be in Dallas this Friday and will put on a “Beers with Brad” event at Lotus.

I’m pretty sure Brad is the hottest celebrity to hit Lotus since Britney did in 2009. So Dallas, let’s put on a good event and make Brad believe Dallas (his hometown) should be the Winter TechStars location.

What: Beers with Brad Feld
Where: Lotus (2900 McKinney Ave)
When: Friday, May 28th; 6pm to 8pm
Cost: Free! (Open bar until the ShopSavvy – StartupLawyer.com sponsorship runs out)

Big thanks to Tech Wildcatters for arranging this event!

Since I moved from thestartuplawyer.com to startuplawyer.com, my organic visits have been down 80%. I usually get about 400 visits per day from search and now I’m floating around 100.

I’ve done a 301 re-direct and a change of address via google’s webmaster tools. I know it might take some time for Google to get me back in the game. But I also read that if my incoming links are updated the process is quicker.

Thus, if you have previously linked to my site, could you please update the link from thestartuplawyer.com –> startuplawyer.com ?

Thank you all for reading! I really appreciate it.

Here’s the presentation slides from Startup Weekend Los Angeles:

CoHabitat will be the host of the May 2010 Dallas Startup Happy Hour.

The Dallas Startup Happy Hour is the talk of the startup community in Dallas. Check out the coverage in the Dallas Morning News here: http://bit.ly/aKTJDq As a result of the events, several startups have found a) employees, b) co-founders, c) angel investors and d) had a few free drinks.

What: Dallas Startup Happy Hour

When: Monday, May 3rd 2010 6pm-8pm

Where: CoHabitat, 2517 Thomas Avenue, Dallas

Who: This event is open to all DFW area startup founders, startup employees, investors, people thinking about doing a startup, etc. As a courtesy to everyone in attendance, we ask service providers to not just show up to pitch their services.

RSVP via Plancast: http://plancast.com/a/2xn4

A quick note about parking… street parking is usually readily available after 5:30pm on Thomas Ave or Routh St.

(Thanks to LaunchDFW for the heads up!)

Thought I would share the deck I used at Dallas Startup Weekend #2. I successfully used my new iPad to give the presentation. The presentation was successful because I didn’t hold up lunch.

Dallas Startup Weekend 2 – April 16 to April 18

Dallas Startup Weekend 2 is only 9 days away and will be held at Company Dallas (1701 N. Collins Blvd, Richardson, TX 75080). Register for Dallas Startup Weekend 2 here.

I’ll be speaking at Dallas Startup Weekend along with Steven Thrasher, Matt Himelfarb, Tiffany Sunday, Cameron Gawley. I’m tentatively scheduled to speak Friday night, but I think I’ll push it to Saturday or Sunday so I can clear the way for the Friday night pitches.

The official Dallas Startup Weekend 2 pre-party is at CoHabitat, a coworking facility located in Uptown Dallas. Register for the pre-party here (it’s free, but let’s give Cohabitat an estimated head count). Cohabitat is located at 2517 Thomas Avenue, Dallas, Tx 75201. Pre-Party starts at 6pm on Thursday April 15. Please note that CoHabitat’s only dress code is no suits.

Los Angeles Startup Weekend – April 30 to May 2

I’ll also be in Santa Monica for Los Angeles Startup Weekend which will be held at CoLoft (920 Santa Monica Blvd., Santa Monica, CA . Register for L.A. Startup Weekend here.

I’ll be speaking at L.A. Startup Weekend along with Sean Percival, Scott Sangster, Andy Wilson, Wil Schroter, and Mark Suster. I’ll be speaking Saturday afternoon.

I’m excited to head out to L.A. as I am a Trojan, grew up in SoCal, and spent plenty of time courting my better half in Santa Monica. Also, my college roommate will be participating so I’ll get to see if he learned anything from all his computer science books that served as decorations, doorstops, and furniture at our apartment.

UPDATE: This was an April Fool’s Day prank.

I’m Gowalla-ing!!! I have decided to move from Southlake to Austin at the end of April.

After a comprehensive polling of my clients, the overall consensus was that Austin was the place to be so that I could properly scale my business.

I hope that I can assimilate in Austin successfully, even though I am a square. But I’m from Cali — and what is square in Cali is “weird” in Austin. So I should be OK.

Anybody have a reference for intrastate movers?

Last Friday, I was talking with @rylanbarnes, @jakemarsh, and @amuse about how I have wanted to obtain craved the startuplawyer.com domain since 2006. I attempted to acquire the domain before launching this blog, but ended up going with thestartuplawyer.com

Well, I acquired startuplawyer.com late last night. It points to this site for now, but this site will likely be moving over to that domain after some minor re-branding. Good thing I had a previously scheduled lunch today with my web designer guru.

I had a chance to meet up with Clint Nelson, one-half of the Startup Weekend full-time partners, this past week when he stopped in Dallas on his way down to SXSW. He and I were both shocked that Startup Weekend Dallas 2 is only a month away (April 16th to the 18th).

If you are a participant in the startup community, you should attend Startup Weekend. No excuses. Buy Your Tickets Here.

Check out the video recap from Startup Weekend Dallas 1, which took place in November 2009:

TechWildcatters is a mentorship-driven microseed fund and startup accelerator in Dallas, Texas. Applications for the first 12-week accelerator “bootcamp” are due March 19.

The selected startups will get up to $25,000 in seed funding, intensive top-notch mentorship, and the opportunity to pitch to angel investors, venture capitalists and corporate dev teams at their biannual “Demo Day”.

Here’s the type of startups TechWildcatters is looking for:

-Applications: B2B Web/Enterprise 2.0, BI/data/analytics, gaming/simulation, etc.

-Technology: Web, SaaS, open source, data integration, middleware, etc.

-Customers: SMB through Fortune 500 (no consumer apps)

-Location: Come from anywhere, willing to locate to Dallas for the program

-Founders: Well-rounded founder teams >1 person, demonstrated understanding of entrepreneurship, relevant technical and business knowledge

-Capital: Needing seed capital to support living expenses while bootstrapping, can make efficient use of limited capital, would generally be planning on self/angel/customer financing as a next step coming out of the program

Apply to TechWildcatters here.

The next week is going to be extremely busy in Dallas for startups. Here’s the roster of events next week courtesy LaunchDFW:

Monday March 1st – Dallas Startup Happy Hour

The first Monday means Startup Happy Hour. The Dallas Startup Happy Hour is the talk of the startup community in Dallas. Check out the coverage in the Dallas Morning News here. As a result of the events, several startups have found a) employees, b) co-founders, c) angel investors and d) had a few free drinks.
Monday March 1, 2010 from 5:00pm – 8:00pm
High Tech Bar at the INFOMART
1950 Stemmons Freeway
Dallas, Texas
Sponsored by Architel – you are invited to attend.

Wednesday March 3rd – Ignite Dallas

Fast-paced, fun, thought-provoking, social, local, global—Ignite is all of these and more. It’s a high-energy evening of 5-minute talks by people who have an idea—and the guts to get onstage and share it with their hometown crowd.
Wednesday March 3rd
Doors Open at 6:00pm
Pre-show game starts 6:30pm
First speaker begins 7:30pm

At the: Granada Theater
Buy Tickets

Friday March 5th – Find a Founder

Dallas-based microseed fund and business accelerator, Tech Wildcatters, is hosting a Find a Founder night. Show up on Friday, 5pm-7pm, at 2211 Commerce St, 2nd floor, Dallas, TX. Read what the Dallas Morning News had to say about Tech Wildcatters here.

After next week, it seems like all my clients will be headed down to SXSW. And then Startup Weekend visits Dallas April 16-18.

I’ll be giving a brief presentation next week when the MIT Enterprise Forum of Dallas-Fort Worth puts on Bootstrapping 2010.

When: Thursday, Feb 25, 2010. 5:30-8:30pm
Where: Infomart #2019 (Architel), 1950 Stemmons Freeway, Dallas 75207
Registration: $20 including dinner. (There is a discount for Entrepreneurs (i.e., $1 tickets), so contact babar at mutualmind.com for details.)

Here is the program details:

5:30 – Networking & Dinner
5:45 – Introduction
6:00 – Alexander Muse – Why this is a great time for startups in DFW
6:20 – Ryan Roberts – Startup legal matters (note: I’ll have a much better title & presentation than this title might otherwise suggest)
6:40 – Mike Merrill – 10 Ways to Promote Your Company For Free Using Social Media
7:00 – BREAK
7:15 – Entrepreneur Roundtable – Hear from DFW Entrepreneurs
7:45 – Gabriella Draney – Tech WildCatters – Microseed Fund in DFW
8:00 – Nick Lawrence – Alternate sources of funding

Ignite Dallas is hosting its first event on March 3rd at the Granada Theater.

What is Ignite Dallas?

Five minutes, 20 slides. What would you say? At Ignite Dallas, 16 artists, technologists, thinkers, and personalities will take the stage to answer this challenge.

Submissions are now open for speakers. If you want speak, fill out the form and submit your topic. Topics can be technical, geeky, funny, artistic, creative or just plain wild and crazy, but please no sale pitches.

The Goal

To spark new conversations and collaborations across cultures and disciplines throughout the city of Dallas with fast-paced, bite-sized presentations. It’s a great opportunity to meet smart, interesting people and maybe even learn something.

Tickets range from $10-$25. Buy them here.

Austin Ventures is holding their “AV Entrepreneur Hours” in Dallas on Wednesday, February 24.

AV Entrepreneur Hours is a chance for early stage entrepreneurs (particularly those in the internet and software space) to dictate casual conversation with the VCs from Austin Ventures in a casual environment. AV plans to have 10-12 slots for quick 20-30 minute chats with entrepreneurs.

To learn more about AVEH in Dallas and/or sign-up, check out AV’s post about it here.

Thanks for coming, AV. (And thanks for the tip about the event, @mdavis)