My clients put together a nice amount of seed and venture financings in 2011. On the home front, my wife and I experienced the arrival of our 3rd new addition to the family. In fact, she even let me revise a term sheet in maternity triage about 45 minutes before delivery. (startup/lawyer pro tip: Don’t try that with your 1st or 2nd baby.)

Thus, I didn’t have much time to write in 2011 and this blog was essentially in maintenance mode. However, the stats for this blog were up (259k visits in 2011 compared to 163k visits in 2010). Look for more posts in 2012 and maybe even a re-design.

I’ll also be stepping out of the office a bit in 1Q 2012: I’m scheduled to be in San Francisco in a few weeks, planning a trip to NYC in mid February, and will be in Austin for part of SXSWi. Let me know if you’ll be there, would love to connect.

Happy new year, everybody. And thanks for reading.

Startup Weekends are weekend-long, hands-on experiences where entrepreneurs and aspiring entrepreneurs can find out if startup ideas are viable. On average, half of Startup Weekend’s attendees have technical backgrounds, the other half have business backgrounds.

Beginning with open mic pitches on Friday, attendees bring their best ideas and inspire others to join their team. Over Saturday and Sunday teams focus on customer development, validating their ideas, practicing LEAN Startup Methodologies and building a minimal viable product. On Sunday evening teams demo their prototypes and receive valuable feedback from a panel of experts.

Get your tickets here:

http://dallas.startupweekend.org/tickets

Your ticket covers smeals, snack, access to exclusive resources from global sponsors, a book from O’Reilly Media and all the coffee you can drink.

Also, LaunchDFW will have a team there to work on the 2.0 version of our site. For a deeply discounted event ticket to specifically work on this project during the weekend, RSVP here: http://www.meetup.com/LaunchDFW/Dallas-TX/461562/, or email Bradley Joyce at Bradley [at] LaunchDFW [dot] com.

What is Tech Wildcatters?

Tech Wildcatters is a mentorship-driven startup accelerator that puts participating companies through an intensive 12-week program. Startups receive up to $25,000 in seed funding in exchange for a small amount of equity (~6%) and have access to mentors.

Why Apply?

Tech Wildcatters was recently ranked the #7 incubator/accelerator in the country.

I’ve represented about 8 startups in the first 2 TW classes. After watching them work through the program, I recommend that startups apply to TW. If you want to chat with them re their participating in the program, send me an email and I’ll get you in touch with some of them.

How to apply

Head over to http://techwildcatters.com/apply/.
If you apply, be sure to watch the video on the application page for some good ideas on how to pitch your company.

Important Dates

July 24: Application deadline.
July 27: Finalists for quick pitch day will be notified.
Aug 3: Fall quick pitch day.
Aug 10th: Fall offers sent out.
Sept. 6: Fall orientation begins.
Dec. 8: Pitch Day
Dec. 16: Fall program ends

Startup Weekends are weekend-long, hands-on experiences where entrepreneurs and aspiring entrepreneurs can find out if startup ideas are viable. On average, half of Startup Weekend’s attendees have technical backgrounds, the other half have business backgrounds.

Beginning with open mic pitches on Friday, attendees bring their best ideas and inspire others to join their team. Over Saturday and Sunday teams focus on customer development, validating their ideas, practicing LEAN Startup Methodologies and building a minimal viable product. On Sunday evening teams demo their prototypes and receive valuable feedback from a panel of experts.

Get your tickets here:

http://dallas.startupweekend.org/tickets

Your ticket covers seven meals, snack, access to exclusive resources from global sponsors, a book from O’Reilly Media and all the coffee you can drink.

Here’s a great statistic: Over 36% of Startup Weekend startups are still going strong after 3 months. Roughly 80% of participants plan on continuing working with their team or startup after the weekend.

Class of 2011

At the 2011 Pitch Day, you’ll get to check out pitches by startups like:

Memory Reel is an event marketing solution that enables brands and event organizers to connect deeply with attendees, while measuring marketing effectiveness and improving ROI. Their affordable mobile applications and software tools take a clients event marketing efforts to a whole new level.

Proxomo radically increases a developer’s productivity in developing web and mobile applications by providing an integrated collection of backend services into a single RESTful (JSON, XML) API. Presently, Proxomo provides the following functions: user management, event management, application data, geo location, auto scaling, social network integration, and notifications (email, SMS), with many more on the way.

SparkCrowd is a mobile social games company with a social mission to help make meaningful connections in the real world — not just online. Name tag is a real world game of Tag with the people around you and is available for iPhone and IPad in the app store

Vignature provides an image-based electronic signature service that reduces fraud, while expediting document signing. Consumers can download a mobile app, and sign anything from permission slips to business contracts. Businesses can use a web-based service to request and receive signatures online. Vignature is the only company that creates a verifiable signature, including a time-specific photograph of the signer.

mComm360 is a mobile enablement company that is developing a mobile offer platform that allows consumer brands to deliver mobile coupons and offers at convenience stores.

Nimbix is an emerging provider of cloud-based High Performance Computing infrastructure and applications. Nimbix offers hardware accelerated server platforms as a service through the Nimbix Accelerated Compute Cloud (NACC) Portal.

Rentsavvy is an apartment decision engine that helps renters find their next place based on their interests and budget.

Pitch Day Schedule

The tentative Pitch Day schedule is set forth below (although my inside source tells me there may be a panel instead of a keynote):

12:00-12:30 Check-in and networking
12:30-12:40 Opening Remarks
12:40-1:45 Company Presentations
1:45-2:00 Break
2:00-2:45 Keynote
2:45-3:30 Company Presentations
3:30-3:45 Closing Remarks
3:45-5:00 Investor / Company Networking
5:00-8:00 Happy Hour

Register for the event here: http://twpitchday2011.eventbrite.com

6pm – 9pm Friday Night – Happy Hour and Round Table on Failure with Silicon Valley entrepreneurs:

Christian Wiklund – CEO of Skout.com
Paul Bragiel – Partner at i/o Ventures
Travis Kalanick – Founder of Red Swoosh
Matt Marshall – Founder of VentureBeat as Moderator

Come back Saturday at 1pm to share successes and meet with the Dallas community about innovation and entrepreneurship:

1pm – From Ideation to Product Success — Christian Wiklund
2pm – The Ins’ and Outs of Good Funding — Paul Bragiel
3pm – The Basic Needs Mentors, Advisors, and Board Members O-My — Travis Kalanick
4pm – Making the Buzz — Matt Marshall & Redg Snodgrass
5pm – Quick Pitch and Feedback – 90 Seconds of life and death with 90 Seconds of Feedback
6pm – 8:30pm Mixer

It’s all taking place at 2700 Fairmount Street (Tech Wildcatters HQ) in Dallas Texas.

Register for the Event here.

Join us for free drinks, demos and mingle with Southern California startups.

Monday, March 14th from Noon to 3:00 PM

Parkside (6th and San Jacinto)
301 East 6th Street
Austin, TX 78701

REGISTER HERE

Total Visits: 162,539 visits (94,685 in 2009)

Top State Visits: 33,686 from Cali, 14,228 from New York and 12,038 from Texas.

Top University Visits: 309 visits from Stanford, 163 from MIT, 150 from Harvard

Top Visited Page: If I Launched a Startup @ 37,933 page views

Thanks for reading in 2010 and I look forward to writing for you in 2011…

Tech Wildcatters is a startup accelerator that offers up to $25,000 and 12 weeks of hands on mentorship. Here’s what they look for in a startup:

-2 or more founders (there’s way too much work for just one person)

-Web, mobile, software, SaaS, tech enabled services, or any other kind of highly scalable tech

-B2B focus (i.e. the majority of your revenue needs to come from businesses)

-Ability for all founders to attend the 12 week program in Dallas

Semifinalists will be invited to Quick Pitch day in January where you will have the opportunity to learn more about the program and pitch to the entire mentor group. A community happy hour with Brad Feld will follow where he will be signing his book “Do More Faster”. Quick Pitch is a closed event.

Tech Wildcatters is looking to work with 7-10 companies in this class. And they plan to start having 2 classes per year.
Start here to apply.

This Dallas-based startup is looking for people to fill the following positions:

· Ruby on Rails Developer
· Mobile Developers (iPhone, Android, Windows Phone 7, Blackberry)
· B2B Sales; Background in DB marketing, Loyalty marketing, Retail
· UI Designer / Graphic Designer

Benefits are likely to include (i.e., talk to them about this):

· Health Insurance
· Stock options
· Ability to work with a very casual but professional team in a non corporate environment
· Comfy chairs, ok desks and unlimited keurig coffee

If you are interested, contact the guys at Key Ring directly via email at info@keyringapp.com

TRUE linkswear is a Dallas startup, co-founded by Sean Eidson, Robert Rigg and Ryan Moore. Even though they aren’t technically a tech startup, they incorporate a great deal of technology and design into their line of golf shoes:

They’ve been generating some amazing buzz in the golf community for being “the most comfortable shoe — of any kind”, received press on PGA.com and made the ESPN.com holiday golf gift guide.

Of course, it also works if one of your co-founder’s stellar performance helps validate your product. Like most successful startups, they have a great team with a diverse-yet-complementary skill set.

I’ve only been able to get 9 holes of golf in since July, but I’ll definitely be wearing their shoes on (and off) the course soon. Get your pair here.

From http://globalstartupbattle.com/battle:

“On the weekends of November 12-14 and 19-21, hundreds of teams around the world will compete with one goal in mind: to dominate the competition, building a company from scratch in just a weekend. Participants converge as individuals on Friday evening, form teams around ideas, and build their products over the next 48 hours – culminating in pitching to a panel of expert judges on Sunday night.

What is Global Startup Battle?

Global Startup Battle is a global competition organized and supported by Startup Weekend, working in conjunction with Global Entrepreneurship Week. The goal of the Battle is to create friendly competition among the attendees of Startup Weekend events and celebrate the awesomeness that is Global Entrepreneurship Week.

What makes Global Startup Battle a Global Competition?

All teams from the Startup Weekend events during Global Entrepreneurship Week (November 12-21) are invited (Dallas is one of these cities). Teams at Startup Weekend events will compete amongst themselves and a winner will be chosen at each event by a panel of judges. Once the local winner is decided, that team has 24 hours to create a 90-second video pitch and a 15-word description that explains what their startup is all about and why it rocks.

Once the videos are collected they will be posted on this site and we will open the floor for voting. Voting will be held on a global level and anyone who wants to vote can. (don’t forget to ask your friends and family to vote – didn’t Aunt Edna say she wanted to encourage your hobbies?)

The ultimate winner will be determined entirely by the open vote. The prizes up for grabs are pretty awesome – check out our Prizes page to learn more. In addition to the killer prizes, the winning team also gets bragging rights for an entire year, which sounds pretty sweet too.”

Just another reason why you should get tickets for Startup Weekend Dallas here.

Big in Japan and Architel announced the speakers for the inaugural Startup Happy Hour 2.0, to be held Wednesday, Oct. 27, at Campbell Centre, will include Blake Burris of CoHabitat; Gabriella Draney of Tech Wildcatters; Danica Mathes of Ignite Dallas; and Joey Pomerenke of Startup Weekend.

More than 250 entrepreneurs, aspiring entrepreneurs and others interested in the Dallas/Fort Worth startup scene have RSVPed for the event.

Here are bios for the speaking lineup:

Blake Burris, Cohabitat

Blake is the founder of CoHabitat, a startup community and hacker co-working space that’s become a hub for startup entrepreneurs, developers, and creatives. Blake also founded Dynamo Labs, where he and his team develop solutions for the rapidly changing clean energy marketplace. Dynamo Labs was the first recipient of fbFund, a grant fund operated by the Founders Fund, Accel Partners, and Facebook. Blake has long been involved in the Dallas startup scene, having helped organize the first BarCamp Dallas in 2005.

Gabriella Draney, Tech Wildcatters

Gabriella is co-founder and managing partner of Tech Wildcatters, a Dallas-based seed accelerator. Previously, she was with HP Growth Partners, an early stage venture fund in Dallas. She co-founded an aircraft scheduling software company in 1998 that ended in a profitable exit. Gabriella went on to work for Morgan Stanley in private wealth management. True to her entrepreneurial roots, she left to follow her passion for nutrition by opening a specialty foods retail store, while simultaneously consulting with numerous Dallas-based startups on strategic planning and finance.

Danica Mathes, Ignite Dallas

Danica is an entertainment, intellectual property and new media attorney with Bell Nunnally & Martin LLP. She represents and counsels clients with respect to traditional trademark, copyright and other intellectual property protection and exploitation matters, preparation, review and negotiation of contracts, and formation of appropriate business entities. Danica was an adjunct professor of entertainment law at Washington University School of Law for five years, and she has been listed in The Best Lawyers in America since 2007. She is one of the inaugural organizers of Ignite Dallas and is actively involved with the Dallas International Film Festival.

Joey Pomerenke, Startup Weekend

Joey is an entrepreneur, startup enthusiast and travel junkie. He currently manages events for Startup Weekend, the Seattle-based non-profit organization that has become one of the leading catalysts for startup creation and entrepreneurship education in startup ecosystems around the world. Startup Weekend is currently represented in over 100 cities in more than 25 countries.

The first three Startup Happy Hour 2.0 events will be held Oct. 27, Nov. 24 and Dec. 22. The events will run from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m., with speakers beginning at 6 p.m. The location is 8350 N. Central Expressway, Suite 250, in the north tower of Campbell Centre.

To RSVP and/or join the discussion about Startup Happy Hour 2.0, visit http://www.meetup.com/Dallas-Startup-Happy-Hour.

(The content for this post was 99.9% ripped from Big in Japan’s blog post.)

For the past year or so, every time I’m about to enter a startup event Kid Cudi‘s “Embrace the Martian” song pops into my head. This lyric in particular:

All I ask of all y’all is to please…
Embrace the martian, embrace the martian
I come in peace, but I need y’all rockin wit me
Please, embrace the martian

Being involved with the startup scene makes me a better lawyer and a better resource for my clients.

The only connections startup lawyers are typically known for are VC introductions. But service providers like startup lawyers can also be helpful with non-investor intros for things like hiring.

Just yesterday one of my clients asked me if I knew any UI/UX people who could help out with their mobile app. I shot them an email with about 3 people and they’ve set up meetings with at least 2 of them for today.

So if a service provider shows up at a startup event, embrace the martian. But if a service provider tries to french kiss you with an engagement letter immediately after meeting you, then kick the service provider back to outer space.

And thanks to all of you who have embraced this martian.

The Event

Startup Weekend Dallas 3 will open Friday night with a presentation of new ideas for startup ventures. Pitch your own idea or simply watch and listen. Participants then choose their favorite ideas and form teams around them. The teams spend the weekend networking, developing, and building a proof of concept demo. Most ideas and projects are Web and tech-focused. On Sunday night, the teams will demo their projects to a group of panelists who will ultimately decide a winner.

Weekend Extras

During the weekend, there will be presentations from various members of the startup community. I’ll give a presentation on a few general aspects of startup law along with some tips of how to deal with the Dallas angel investor scene.

Tyler Koblasa, founder of Mingly and Startup Nights, will give a presentation about how he launched Mingly at Startup Weekend Los Angeles and continued to develop after his win. He’ll also talk about how he developed Startup Nights to keep the local startup scene momentum going between annual and semi-annual events like Startup Weekend.

Vijay Thakkar, Technical Director and Toy Maker at Newtoy Inc., will also be speaking Saturday night. Newtoy is a DFW-based company with the very famous Words With Friends and Chess With Friends applications for the iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch platforms.

Current prizes for the winning team include a one-month “Nomad” membership for 3 people from the winning team at CoHabitat, the coworking community in uptown Dallas. I’ll also include a startup incorporation package for the winning team. More extras, including additional presenters, prizes for the winning team, and event sponsors will be posted on the Startup Weekend Dallas 3 website.

Location

Startup Weekend Dallas 3 is being held at the brand new offices of Architel & Big in Japan (makers of ShopSavvy) in the Campbell Centre at 8350 N. Central Expressway, Suite 250, Dallas, TX 75206. Architel and Big in Japan are also sponsors of the event. I got the grand tour of the new office space from Alex and Rylan last week and from what I saw the place is a legit startup heaven:

Buy Your Tickets

Tickets to participate in Startup Weekend Dallas 3 are $75 ($40 if you are a student) and can be purchased at dallas.startupweekend.org/tickets. Please note that meals are included with your ticket price!

For more information about Startup Weekend Dallas 3, including sponsorship opportunities, visit dallas.startupweekend.org.

About Startup Weekend

Startup Weekend is non-profit organization based out of Seattle, Wash., Startup Weekend’s primary mission is to provide unparalleled experiential education opportunities for aspiring entrepreneurs around the globe. Its model is event-based, community-focused, interactive and results-driven entrepreneurial development. As a result, Startup Weekend has become one of the leading catalysts for startup creation and entrepreneurship education in startup ecosystems around the world. Startup Weekend is currently represented in over 100 cities in more than 25 countries. Learn more at http://startupweekend.org.

Be sure to check out the CoHabitat + TEDxSMU Mobile Salon October 12th @ 6pm and the launch of Digital Dallas October 14th @ 6pm.

Idea Week is a grassroots effort by the producers of TEDxSMU and some of Dallas’ leading social enterprises and individuals to showcase some of the most new and exciting conversations occurring in Dallas.

Designed to extend the TED experience and philosophy of spreading ideas worth sharing, Idea Week features more than 25 events, most of which are free and open to the public or streamed live online, as a lead-in to the second annual TEDxSMU. Idea Week’s inaugural year is 2010. An event of this magnitude being conceived and launched within three months on a $1,000 budget lives its own mission to reflect a new order of thinking and doing.

More ideas, inspiration and information at dallasideas.org and @ideaweek.

These are some of the wisecracks I get from startup clients when I show up to their office wearing a suit. And since most of my clients wear flip-flops to work, I probably should know better than to wear dress shoes to their office.

But I’ve been wearing fewer suits. In fact, I just completed a “no suit summer” at my office. Mere coincidence that this summer was legendary? I think not.

While some suits are Seersuckers, all suits are creativity-suckers. In the last 25 years, nothing of substance was invented while wearing a suit.

Although, I bet mortgage-backed securities were invented by someone wearing a suit. We could probably replace over 300 pages of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Bill with a simple “No Suit” policy for the financial sector:

I’m a bit of a hypocrite because I’m wearing a suit and tie in my website photos. I really need to get one of those “chillin’, but professional” headshots with a dress shirt or blazer/dress shirt combo and replace the current photos on this site.

If you feel uncomfortable with your lawyer wearing a suit around you, I’d just tell him or her. I wouldn’t expect any objections.

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.

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

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.