I’m crazy about new businesses. The passion, the excitement, the discovery involved in starting something new, figuring out what works, pursuing a passion. I’m known in the office for exuberant introductions to a favorite new customer. I carry pictures in my briefcase of my favorite old customers. Starting a new business is hard as hell (I have first hand experience), but it is a special breed of person who can weather that perfect storm. And those are the people I want to spend my professional life with.
So why, you might ask, would someone this loopey for the little guys hang out with the corporate suits? Do I want to get bought? Do I want to get financed? Do I want to get customers? Do I want to get free lunch? Yes to maybe a few of these things, but the real reason is that there are some amazing things that can be done when the industry stalwarts are working with the young innovators. And I want to be the small company in on the big conversations.
And so co-upstart Sunir Shah from FreshBooks.com and I are proposing a SXSW Conference panel presentation titled “Dancing with Giants: How Start-Ups Do Deals with Industry Titans”. Our plan (and you can support it by voting for our session) is to spend our hour talking with 3 of the mega giants in our industry; Google, Intuit and American Express about how small and big businesses can work together to build small business greatness.
There can be many pitfalls in doing “game-changing” deals with large corporations; they can disrupt your product plan, delay development efforts, cost money in legal fees, then change directions, abandon your project or launch a competing product. Not to mention your 3 person development team working with a 50 person “rule by committee” scenario on the other side. Not ideal.
Last week’s trip to Atlanta was a whirlwind of Realtors, Batchbook customers and monkeys (more on that later!). Pamela and I were there to attend the 4th annual ReTech South conference, where Pamela was presenting on panel with some other Small Business Web friends.
The thing that struck me the most about the conference was the great enthusiasm and energy from both attendees and presenters. Pamela and I attended a different real estate conference a few years ago, and I was amazed at how far the industry has come in terms of its adoption of technology in general and social media specifically. Most of the sessions were standing-room only, as panelists discussed ways to use blogs to attract leads, using Facebook to build network and of course, how web applications can help grow their businesses. Plus, you will not meet a nicer, more network group of people than Realtors. These guys are definitely in our wheelhouse!
Here’s some thoughts on the conference from Realtor Jim Duncan, who made a short video while driving home from the conference. Please note: we do not condone videotaping and driving!
BatchBlue is on the road again, this time heading to Atlanta to attend the Real Estate & Technology Conference & Expo (RETech South). Pamela will be speaking on a panel about The Small Business Web and using cloud services with MailChimp, Expensify and IfByPhone. I’ll be there, too, armed with lots of stickers, shirts and stories and talking to folks about how they’re using Batchbook to manage their real estate contacts. If there was ever a well-connected group of folks, it’s Realtors! And judging from photos of past conferences, they’re fun, too. We like that.
We can’t wait to meet some Realtors doing cool things with technology in the real estate industry. We’ve even re-vamped our Batchbook for Real Estate page and added a new case study so folks can see how one tech-savvy Realtor is using a variety of web-based services to run his real estate agency.
As always, we’re interested in meeting our friends and customers, so if you are going to be there please let us know! We may put together a hosted Drink-up Thursday night – follow us on Twitter (twitter.com/batchblue) for details as they shape up.
We’re back from the great state of Texas and slowly recovering from our SXSW experience. This was my fourth time to the event I’m amazed every year at how much bigger and more intense it seems: the city of Austin literally vibrates with energy 24×7, making it hard for old ladies like me to get their beauty rest.
This year, TJ Sondermann (our business development manager) and Christelle Lachapelle (marketing designer) made the trip to Texas with me. Because this was their first time attending, I asked them to share their impressions as folks who’ve never been to SXSW before. Here’s what they had to say:
Hi guys – just a quick update to say thanks to all who came to the Big Party for Small Business! We had a lot of fun and hope the folks who came did, too. A special thanks to Guy Kawasaki and Gary Vaynerchuk who took time out of their insanely busy schedules to come by, do a little bowling, and be good sports about getting their pictures taken a million times. Thanks, too, to our Small Business Web sponsors American Express OPEN and to Laura Thomas from Dell for providing some great last minute additions to our giveaway bags in the form of their hot new ruby red laptops, the Vostro V130. It’s great to see how much support there is out there for small business owners!
Here are a few pictures from the party, as well as some other Texas highlights. We’re really looking forward to doing our panel tomorrow with our pals from Google, FreshBooks, Formstack and MailChimp presenting on being Friends with Business Benefits, How Integrations Sell Apps in Salon D at the Hilton. If you are in Austin, swing on by to say hello!
