Company: Excelegrade
Started: Fall 2011
The story: “I was teaching second grade in Atlanta Public Schools as part of Teach for America. I absolutely loved teaching, but the grading and other planning necessary to be a great teacher was extremely time consuming. I thought there had to be a more efficient way to conduct the assessment cycle and wrote down the ideas behind what is now Excelegrade. Our product is developed and is available online now. We have begun to generate revenue and are currently raising a seed funding round.” (Lauren Miller)
Company: Ten Eight
Started: 2012
The story: “My co-founders and I were discussing the frustrations our clients were having after property tours. They couldn’t really decipher one building from the next, or truly remember what they saw on tour. We determined there had to be a better way. We started working on a mobile app for our rating system in February 2012, and came out with our first version of Ten Eight in May of 2012. We released the tour book app plus rating system in February 2012, free for all commercial real estate brokers. We’ve raised a seed capital round of funding for further product development.” (Patrick Brasswell)
Company: deductmor
Started: 2012
The story: “In October 2012, just before exiting my previous venture after we were acquired, I had lunch with a friend who’s a real estate guru, and the subject of ‘1099ers’ keeping up with receipts all year came up as ‘very painful.’ I realized none of the current receipt expense players were going after the 1099/self-employed space. We are about 80 percent to version 1 of the entire service, which means IOS/Android apps and full website services. We have no revenue yet, and no funds raised yet.” (Kevin Sandlin)
Thirty of the most promising new companies in Georgia had a coming-out party at last week’s 6th annual Startup Riot, a daylong pitchfest where there are cash prizes and everyone gets to make connections and impress potential investors.
Software, IT and mobile hardware entrepreneurs laid out their dreams in three minutes flat, among them the winner, Excelegrade, and fellow top five finishers Ten Eight and deductmor.
Afterwards, the founders of those three businesses, Lauren Miller, Patrick Braswell and Kevin Sandlin, got together at the request of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution to talk about what it’s like to launch.
Miller, a 26-year-old Atlantan and Harvard MBA, is a former second-grade schoolteacher who with Excelegrade has come up with a way to make tests digital, deliver them on mobile devices, and track student performance while personalizing the learning experience.
Braswell, a 33-year-old Atlantan with a commercial real estate background, co-founded Ten Eight which has developed a mobile app that gives brokers and their clients the ability to store floor plans and rate commercial properties they tour.
Sandlin, 45, of Atlanta, is a successful serial entrepreneur who with deductmor offers people who file IRS tax form 1099 an app to capture, store and download tax receipts, allowing users to take more deductions and pay less for tax preparation.
Here are excerpts of their thoughts on various subjects:
Entrepreneurship: a bumpy ride
Lauren: I absolutely love doing a startup. and I do think this is probably what I should continue to do for the large part of my life. However, I am actually very risk averse. Every thing about this process drives me nuts. Next week we could be out of money. Two weeks from now I could be on a high. It’s really an emotional roller coaster. It doesn’t fit my personality. But what does fit my personality is being able to take something from vision to reality.
Kevin: You keep following the dream. You’ve come up with this thing that could change the world. That’s what you’re chasing every day. It’s the juice, the thrill of the startup. There’s nothing like it. It is a drug. And it’s a good drug. You can make a lot of money and you can solve a problem.
Patrick: Working for a big corporation is not a guaranteed paycheck. There are layoffs all the time now. I think it’s safer to run your own company.
Kevin: You can’t get fired.
Patrick: You can’t get fired. You might go out of business. But it’s all on you.
There’s more to starting a company than getting rich
Kevin: My first IPO I had to run all the numbers for all the analysts. I was the only one in the company who knew how to run a spreadsheet. After the IPO, the CEO called me in after we’d worked 100 hour weeks for six months, handed me a check and said thank you very much for all your help. And it was for $250.
Lauren: I thought you were going to say $250,000.
Kevin: I probably never would’ve started my own business if I’d gotten a check (that big) when I was 26. I said I am not going to do that again. If I’m going to do an IPO, it’s going to be my company.
Lauren: That makes me think about the people who work for me. Or work with me. Making sure we treat them so they get what they deserve. Success depends on other people who actually end up doing more than you. Make sure they’re adequately compensated, not just financially but as far as recognition is concerned.
Patrick: One of the guys that’s working for me now, money is not the main goal for him. For him, the goal is to work in a culture that’s different. It’s also the camaraderie, that this is a fight we’re going into every day. And every day we’ve got to come out swinging. We’re doing this together as a team.
Entrepreneurs make for friendly, and helpful, bedfellows
Kevin: One of the things that comes out (of events like Startup Riot) is you realize there’s something I can offer you and something that you can offer me. We’re all in the weeds of trying to start a business and that’s very, very tough. Everybody feels like they’re doing it alone; and we’re not alone. It’s good getting together _ not just feeling each other’s pain, but also holding each other up.
Patrick: We gravitate towards one another because we’ve been there. Most people won’t understand that. They have their steady job and steady paycheck.
Lauren: When I was sitting in the audience at Startup Riot I was thinking if I could just grow (Excelegrade) to where I need it to be, I could sell it so I could invest in other people’s ideas. When you hear other people’s ideas you think they’re absolutely brilliant. That’s what I’d like to do in the future, not only start other businesses but invest in other entrepreneurs who are doing wonderful things.
The Atlanta entrepreneurial scene
Patrick: There is a war for talent, especially technology talent. You’ve got to have a community that will bring that talent in in order for startups to be successful. Atlanta does a really good job. We’re not in the top 10 for startups but I think we’ll get there eventually. You’ve got the airport, a great highway system, great universities … we’ve got the recipe to do it. The early stage funding hasn’t been here as much as it should. But I think that’s starting to change.
Kevin: I pitched at a local investment group. One of the conversations going on behind the scenes was that you can get $10,000 or $15,000 or $20,000, and you can get $1 million and up, but not that middle section. That’s what Atlanta’s missing. If a company needs 250 or 500 grand its very tough to get that in Atlanta.
Lauren: It’s extremely frustrating for me. It’s not just that there aren’t that many people to go to (for funding), but the pace at which they move is definitely slower than at other places. And they lack a certain level of directness.
There’s no perfect time to start company
Patrick: For me, I don’t think there’s ever a good time. You either do it, or you don’t. I’ve got three kids under two and a half. That is probably the worst time anyone would ever want to start a business. But you either have a passion to do it or you don’t. You have to follow your passion, or you’ll be miserable.
Lauren: I only care about the market timing … trends affecting my specific market. I can’t worry about whether the economy is down.
Kevin: Part of what drives me is, I don’t want to have a job again. It makes me ill to think of getting my resume ready. I can’t think of anything worse.
Cockeyed optimists? Not necessarily
Kevin: The glass is always full, without a doubt.
Lauren: I’m going to say I’m average as far as optimism. But I’m a huge dreamer.
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