Featured Client - Jim Bull, CEO of Brass Monkey

Jim Bull, CEO Brass Monkey

Brass Monkey is at its core a networking library for interconnecting mobile devices and computers over a local WiFi network. Brass Monkey’s primary use is as a controller, where a mobile device, say an iPhone, uses its built-in controls to communicate to a web based experience (Flash/Flex, Unity3D).
We are addressing the lack of interoperability and speeds of connecting various mobile devices, laptop and desktop computers, large screen displays and web browsers.  Devices that have different operating systems usually cannot communicate easily with each other without using  proprietary software and/or inefficient web-based networking protocols. Methods used currently to connect multiple devices together typically implement an intermediary server, and thus are slow and experience latency, making it prohibitive to use for instant feedback and control. Some other solutions have built-in peer to peer networking, but still lack the  responsiveness and instant feedback expected from something like a game controller.  Other implementations use Bluetooth for connectivity but this does not allow for connecting to many types of devices and its range is severely limited. In addition, none of the current solutions in existence allow for low latency experiences running in a web browser, thus making it a requirement for the end user to install an additional program on his/her computer.  We have solved these problems by removing the server and keeping the connections local to the users’ network, while allowing realtime control over experiences running in a web browser. In the process, we have created possibilities for new and revolutionary user experiences, allowing for large numbers of people to communicate in real time across WiFi networks.

Nantucket Nectar Founder Takes A Liking to La Capoise Concept!

When I started my career as a radio producer I met two guys with a dream Tom First and Tom Scott of Nantucket Nectars.  They became a staple in our studios and a bunch of us partied with them on the island. Years later (today) I met up with Tom First, now Founder and CEO of owater. He asked what I was up to these days and I gave my La Capoise elevator pitch. Looking back at our conversation, I didn’t mean to pitch him, but as an entrepreneur/business owner your elevator pitch comes out whether you like it or not in conversations. What a perk to my day when he said, he really thought my company concept was very good and original.

The small accolades feel just as good as the big ones.

Thanks Tom!

Tom First is a serial entrepreneur who most recently founded owater, the Massachusetts-based healthy sports drink company.

The idea for owater came about when Tom, a fitness fanatic, realized that all of the sports drinks he was consuming were loaded with junk. With years of beverage experience under his belt as one of the founders of  Nantucket Nectars, he decided to try his hand at making a healthier sports drink. The result was a tasty combination of pure water, real fruit and electrolytes which he called owater.

Today, owater makes three product lines which are distributed nationally in chain and independent grocery stores. Infused owater, unsweetened owater and sport owater offer athletes complete hydration, without all the junk.

Most recently, owater has started working with various pro and amateur athletes and organizations from around the country in an effort to get people inspired about health and fitness. The athletes appear on owater labels and are featured on owater.com. Among the group are New England baseball player, Jacoby Ellsbury and football legends Steve Young and Brent Jones, who are also featured with Tom in owater’s popular radio ads.

Tom lives west of Boston, Massachusetts with his wife, three children and a dog. He is a lifelong sports fan and competitive athlete who credits his early involvement in athletics with shaping his success as a business leader. Tom graduated from Brown University in 1989.

La Capoise Galerie provides tailored images for unique identification, for various media content, and to enhance your company’s brand and services. La Capoise provides brand-enhancing solutions for start-up companies and small businesses.

Fundamental to our success is becoming a trusted partner and supplier to the entrepreneurs that we serve. This strategy offers an innovative alternative to conventional stock images and will undoubtedly provide more effective control over budgets and profitability.

We work creatively and collaboratively to enhance the services and products offered by our clients, ensuring that the end customer relates succinctly to your services and methodology. Our photography enables trusted relationships between provider and customer through unique themes, where consumers are encouraged by their own special position within the provider’s environment.

Featured Client - David Greenwald

David Greenwald, Co-founder & CEO

      

Relay Technology Management was founded in 2008 in Boston Massachusetts.  Focused on solving inefficiencies related to early stage drug development, Relay has developed a proprietary software solution for stakeholders of the biopharmaceutical technology licensing and development process.  The Relay Innovation Engine provides real time analysis of candidates, targets, and technologies driven by public and private databases, through a robust proprietary evaluation algorithm backed by a machine learning analytics approach.  Relay provides software as a service and consulting to biopharmaceutical business development, licensing, and corporate development professionals as well as academic technology licensing offices, venture capitalists, consulting groups and investment banks.

Lessons from an Entrepreneur: Guilty of Not Branding My Own Company

We all know the saying “there just isn’t enough time in a day”, well if you’re an entrepreneur you try to squeeze as much productive time in each and every minute, sometimes you’re successful, other times you’re not.

1 year, 28 days, 5 hours, 37 minutes, and 6 seconds ago I jumped head first into the world of business owner. I had always been an entrepreneur, creating and developing for other people/organizations, but now it was my turn.

I combined my passion for marketing and branding with my love of photography and developed La Capoise Galerie a firm specializing in commercial and corporate imaginary, as well as capturing lifelong family memories.

       

My days consist of; checking emails, cold calling potential clients, sending proposals, consultations and photo sessions with existing clients, meeting with my team, maintaining partnerships, customer and vendor relations, editing images, and delivery runs.  All these I can do without batting an eye.

Here comes the IRONY, the most important thing that I have little or no time to do, the one thing that I drill into the minds of each and every client, the thing that I know like the back of my hand, I do not do well enough for my own company and that is (WAIT FOR IT) marketing and branding.

(WARNING: run-on sentence tirade)  Can you believe it! I’ve been doing it for years, I live and breathe to create marketing magic for companies, I jot down ads that WOW me, to show clients how and why competitors and comparable size businesses are growing their bottom line and here I sit struggling to plan out how I will make my three month marketing plan come to light while servicing my customers? Arghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!

Clearly I needed to get a move on with my own campaign, especially the FREE social media scene.  But yet I have a Confession, I have not updated my facebook in 3 weeks, my blog in 4 and don’t even ask me the last time I twitted. If I took for granted the saying, “there just isn’t enough time in a day” before, I promise never to do it again. I started feeling guilty, thinking how can I teach my clients to do something, if I wasn’t doing it myself!

Then I met with Edward Boches, Chief Creative Officer and Chief Social Media Officer of Mullen Advertising. He gave me some basic tips to eliminate the entrepreneur guilt, get back on the social media train and strengthen my company brand in no time. Here are some examples;

1.  Find inventive ways to create or gather content First, whatever you’re doing, write about it. Report on your progress. Second, come up with a daily question you'd want someone to ask and respond to it in a blog post or video. Third, save time by collecting content from others. Place your product or service, even in beta form, in front of people willing to blog, make videos, and tell stories about it. Aggregate this content to your blog or video channel. Fourth, conduct polls or ask questions about a related topic and turn these results into future posts as well as “news” you can release to both bloggers and press.

2.  
    Connect your customers and prospects to each other. One of the best things you can do as a young company is to foster word-of-mouth conversations among your earliest customers. Whether you do it on Facebook or on your own site, it's important to invite your customers to talk to each other and share ideas. Allow them to guide one another on how they use your product or service. Not only will you have the opportunity to learn what people like and don't like about your product, you may end up with a bunch of people you can ask to help you.

3.  
     Make the time, build in the role, or hire the right partner. You can do all this yourself if you have the right time, energy and commitment. If you can’t muster that, give this role to one of your first hires. If you’re less than comfortable identifying that person within your own company, (hint: it’s not an intern or a kid right out of school; Digital Natives may know all the technology, but they often lack the strategic chops and the ability to create truly compelling content) retain the services of a public relations agency with real experience in social influence. Make sure that if you go this route, you ask for case studies as evidence that the PR team assigned to your business actually practices what it preaches.

Ed got me motivated and guilt wasn’t going to slow me down. I took a personal day (yes, entrepreneurs do take days off), headed to my local library and wrote this article/blog/rant/info session/BRANDING message.

Becoming a business owner has become one of the best decisions. The risks are high, the mistakes are many and the rewards continue to flow.

Side Bar: I found an article Blogging advice for people who “have no time to blog” that echoed some of the advise that Ed shared. Enjoy!

Featured Client - Candice Cabe

 Founder of 

and 

Co-Owner of