madKast in the News!

Two great articles about madKast and TechStars have come out recently in local Colorado press which we are quite happy about!

The first was an article in the Boulder County Business Report which mentioned madKast having closed our round of funding and also our future plans for our share widget.

The second article, was in Boulder's Daily Camera and mentioned madKast very favorably; one of the pictures in the article was of the madKast team -- see image above.

We're thrilled to have gotten this good press about madKast, as we spread the word to bloggers and blog readers that our widget is the most powerful way to share news and blog content online.

Startup Weekend Wrap Up

So I'm back in Boulder (albeit a bit jet-lagged) after an excellent weekend in Boston for Startup Weekend! It was a pleasure to met and work with a whole slew of very talented people -- most of whom were from Boston or Boulder. In the period of 54 hours, we joined together to build a brand new startup company from the ground up: the result is DeskHappy.com.

In particular, I'd like to mention Christina Greene, a new media consultant from Boston who gave me some great evangelizing advice as well as taught me how to create an engaging "Social Media Press Release" -- a.k.a. an SMPR.

It was also terrific to meet and learn from Laura Fitton who also had some great tips on evangelizing, blogger outreach, and branding.

Thanks to both of you, along with Andrew Hyde, and all of the other people who made Startup Weekend a great learning experience for me.

madKast at Startup Weekend in Boston

I'm live blogging from Startup Weekend in Boston! There's a ton of positive energy here and by the end of the weekend our team of 50+ people will have built a functioning company. Since I'm the evangelist at madKast, I'm one of the members of the "PR" sub-group in startup weekend.

More as the weekend rolls on....

DEMOgala a Success!

As previewed in last week's post, madKast (along with two fellow TechStars' companies -- Villij & Eventvue) attended Colorado Technology Association (CSIA's) annual celebration of Colorado technology and innovation last Thursday. We had a live madKast demonstration going throughout the course of the day which showcased our share technology as well as some of our future plans as a company.

As I mentioned in our last post, madKast's own Doug Ludlow was one of three panelists who spoke during a session called "From Napkin to Market." The panel, and Doug's contributions in particular, was well-received. In one of the more colorful moments of the discussion, Doug argued for his view that non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) with potential investors, mentors and future customers can actually be hindrance during the early stages of a developing company as they often stifle a free, organic exchange of ideas and brainstorming.

In addition to our demonstration booth and Doug's panel discussion, we had the opportunity to meet many new faces in the Colorado entrepreneurial and tech field. We also got to catch up with some of our business acquaintances including Todd (CEO) and Tara (rockstar evangelist) from fellow widget-startup, Lijit; people from Me.dium -- another Boulder startup -- and talk to Brad Feld (one of our key investors), David Cohen from TechStars David Brown, another important investor and mentor of ours, and Rob Hooke from EONBusiness Venture Capital.

All and all a great opportunity for us. And a heartfelt thanks to Brad Feld not only for sponsoring us to attend DEMOgala, but also for mentioning us in his keynote speeach!

MadKast Participating in CSIA's demoGALA

MadKast has been selected as a finalist in Colorado's Technology Association (CSIA) annual celebration of Colorado technology and innovation. The DEMOgala, which takes place at the Grand Hyatt in Denver, CO on October 11, will also feature our very own Doug Ludlow as a featured speaker.

Doug will be speaking at a session called "From Napkin to Market," where he'll be discussing the process of nurturing an inchoate idea or innovation (such as one scribbled on a napkin during a brainstorming session) all the way to a viable market product.

madKast Closes Series A Investment!

After countless meetings, investment pitches, and many documents signed, madKast is delighted to announce that we have closed our Series A round of investment for $300,000 from a group of extremely well-qualified and influential investors.

Most of the investment that we have raised will be spent on hiring a couple of rockstar developers to help Tony build the cool technology that we have in the pipeline. If you know anyone who might be interested, please let us know as we'd love to interview him or her.

Specificially, the investment will allow us to improve our share widget, build an advanced widget distribution platform and allow us to initiate enterprise level custom widget installations. We'll talk more in depth about each of these in future blog posts.

More important than the actual dollars raised is the caliber of the investors that have joined our team. Our talented group of investors includes: EONBusiness Venture Capital, Brad Feld (Managing Director of Foundry Group), David Cohen (Executive Director of TechStars), Jared Polis (Founder of BlueMountain.com and ProFlowers.com), Paul Berberian (Founder and CEO of Raindance Communications; founder of Market Force Information), David Brown (Founder and President of ZOLL Data Systems), and Marc Silverman (Executive Director of CTEK Boulder). Each investor brings a unique skill set to madKast that we intend to take full advantage of.

We look forward to working with this fine group of investors over the coming months.