Luca Pacioli

I heard Steve Blank, eight-time serial entrepreneur who also teaches at Stanford, U.C. Berkeley and Columbus, speak at the TEC Club. In  Steve’s seminal book:  The Startup Owner’s Manual,  his first rule is “There Are No Facts Inside Your Building, So Get Outside.”  Steve’s preaches creating products the customer wants, instead of building a product  and hoping there is a market.  The key theme throughout Steve’s book is to engage with your target customer immediately or get out of the building.

Tom Mornini  with new startup, Boocx, Inc., has built a product that everyone in business wants: real time accounting. Tom spoke at TEC on November 15, 2012.   Tom was  the  founder of  the very successful Engine Yard, recently left Engine Yard to co-founded,   Boocx, Inc.  Not since Luca Pacioli (photo above)   printed  his treatise in 1495 in Venice on double-entry bookkeeping, has there been such a revolution in bookkeeping. Tom has taken static bookkeeping (bookkeeping data is always historical) and made it a vital, living application. He is also creating a new software space: AssS (accounting as a service).

Who Needs Real Time Accounting?  If you are running a business today, you are probably using one of the old-war horse standards (we all know which ones they are).  You are basing your business decisions on historical data, maybe a month old or possibly even a quarter old, or god forbid a year old. Even if it is a day old, it is NOT real time.  Tom is proposing real time accounting. When you run your report the data is current.

What is Boocx? “Boocs is a set of powerful APIs that allow you to quickly build the accounting part of your application” a quote from the Boocx website.

How Does the Magic Happen? You (obviously the “you” is the developer) add Boocx code snippets to your app, thus allowing financial events to get accounted as they happen, instead of running monthly data base queries and (outdated) spreadsheets.

What is Your Launch Date?  January 2013. The first private beta started on December 3, 2012. A little bit larger private beta will be launched in mid-February, followed by a public beta in March-April 2013.

What Do You Give the Market that QuickBooks, Excel  Don’t/Can’t? Real-time statement, real-time visualization, audibility, authentication, authorization, vertical accounting, horizontal accounting……a new space AaaS “Accounting as a Service.”

The Team? Luca Pacioli is part of the team in spirit. The flesh members are: Tom Mornini, Dan Murphy, Riki Crusha, Loren Hale and John McKee. Yes, five (5) co-founders, several of whom has successfully worked together in the past.

TakeAway: Some industries have been around unchanged for hundreds of years. Before Tom Mornini came along with the concept of creating a cloud-based real-time accounting , most financial decisions were and still are (Boocx hasn’t launched yet) based on historical data. Historical double-entry accounting data should be relegated to history, which is exactly what Tom is planning to do.

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Darren Schreiber, CEO & Co-Founder and Patrick Sullivan, COO & Co-Founder 2600hz.

As Bob Marley said: “Won’t you help to sing these songs of freedom? ‘Cause all I ever have, redemption songs, redemption songs. Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery. None but ourselves can free our minds. Have no fear for atomic energy……” What Bob was talking about was the telecom platform of today in the enterprise communication space.

On Friday, October 26, 2012 I sat down with the captain, co-founder, CEO of 2600hz , Darren Schreiber. When Darren was 11 years old and asked for a roll of telephone wire for a Christmas present from his parents, he created a whole chain of events that would culminate in his cloud telecom startup which “builds massive architectures that power the world’s communications.” Oh and did I mention that he and his co-founder, Patrick Sullivan, COO bootstrapped the entire operation? Impressive, especially in the difficult telecom space.

When Were You Founded? 2600hz started as an open source project in July 2010.

Business Model? Freemium. Even though their basic platform software, Kazoo, is completely free, the company is quite profitable based on requests for training, customization of the platform and support. If you host ON THE 2600HZ SERVERS it’s “freemium.” If you download the software and run it yourself, it’s 100% free.

Programming Language? I never heard of it before, but I guess you if are a telephony guy you’ve heard of  Erlang, developed by Joe Armstrong at Ericsson.

 Secret? Telephony users want to be “up” (aka working 100% of the time). If a website is down for a while, most users will come back later, but if your telephone system is down (even for a few minutes) it is a business disaster. 2600hz makes a system without the parts failing through their ability to distribute usage from one virtual data center to another–automatically. Revolutionary!

Flexibility. Business is always changing. Kazoo (based on open-source APIs), the platform built specifically for scaling and managing a growing telecommunications infrastructure while keeping the cost low, low, low. With Kazoo you can create new applications as needed or integrate it with any service you desire.

Team. Darren Schreiber, CEO supernerd telephony guy, who in his spare time guest lectures at major universities on VoIP technology and leads paid international VoIP trainings. His SF HQ trainings sell out more quickly than a Bob Marley concert. Patrick Sullivan, COO with 10 years of B2B major account sales and management experience plus several excellent French engineers so you know the product is elegantly designed as well as functional.

Target Market? Carriers, device MFRs, business, developers and resellers.

Takeaway: So if you want to “emancipate yourself from mental slavery,”  from the expensive carriers, want customization, want to be running 99.9999% of of the time–go virtual, go cloud, go 2600hz.

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Laura Schewel, CEO & Co-Founder and Paul Friedman, CTO & Co-Founder of StreetLight Data

As Bob Marley said: “I said (darkness) darkness has covered my light, (and the stage) And has changed my day into night, yeah …Concrete jungle (la la-la!), ah, won’t you let me be (concrete, jungle!), now.” Bob was talking about the concrete jungle of roadways and geospatial data. Bob knew the retailers wanted to know who was driving by their site and not coming in.

On Thursday, October 25, 2012, I sat down with Laura Schewel, CEO and Co-Founder of StreetLight Data who has figured out how to turn anonymous bread crumb data (low precision from cell phone and high fidelity from navigation devices) into valuable, salable information that the brick-and-mortar retailers can use to make informed marketing decisions.  

Doesn’t Every One Drive a Prius, Have a Mac and Buy On-Line? No. Silicon Valley is different from the rest of the world (we knew that), the majority of people still buy from brick-and-mortar stores. The brick-and-motor stores need data to decide where to locate their store, how to customize out-door signage for their target market and where to spend their advertising dollars (advertising on internet radio, targeting by IP, ROP (run of press)-print ads.

Technology Space and Target Market? Geospatial business intelligence, aka “big data” for retailers. The verticals are retailers, commercial real estate, outdoor advertising, wholesale distributors, consultants and transport engineering. The size of the market is $7.5B plus.

Product? The first product is InSight, a web app-based data subscription to support retail marketing decisions. To quote Laura “InSight combines Route Science, which puts messy transportation data into context, with archival data exhaust from real-time location-based services.” Route Science combines four different elements: engineering models of vehicles, driver behavior data, environmental information, and road segment characterization and scoring. InSight figures out who you are and where you are to a degree of accuracy to be extremely valuable to brick-and-motor retailers.

Beta Product Delivery? Delivered this week to a small chain retail client.

Business Model? Standard web-based data-as-a-service subscription.

Track Record? Paul Friedman, CTO and Co-Founder, recently founded three (3) data-oriented star-ups which were successfully  acquired by large players in this space. So now Paul is working his IP protectable magic at StreetLight Data. StreetLight evolved out of Laura’s graduate work at UC Berkeley.

Advantage? Cheaper, better and faster. First mover to measure dynamic, place-based demographics (who are they and were are they).

Takeaway: Laura and Paul have taken the concrete jungle of who is on the roads and when and figured out how to turn it into big-data gold.

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Lily Truong, Co-Founder & CEO, Clear Ear Inc.

As Bob Marley said: “Don’t worry about a thing, ‘Cause every little thing gonna be all right….Three little birds pitch by my doorstep singin’ sweet songs  of melodies pure and true….”

How are you going to hear those “melodies pure and true” if you are one of the 12M Americans who visit medical professional annually for earwax removal? On  Thursday, October 18, 2012 I sat down at Philz in Palo Alto with Lily Truong, Co-Founder & CEO of Clear Ear Inc.  I found out that cerumen (ear wax) management market is a $1.5B market. Who knew?

Pain Point? This is a world-wide problem. Proper ear care today requires expensive equipment and highly trained personnel. As the population ages, this becomes a large growth industry and with hearing aides being made small and being place further down into the ear canal, ear wax removal becomes more critical.

Customers? The target market will be the 12,000 ENTs and 110,000 Audiologist/HA Specialists.

IP? Why yes. Clear Ear has three (3) patented platform technologies: 1) Illumination of body orifices using total internal reflection, 2) Suction catheter that combines integrated retractable and scalable instruments and 3) Radial directed pulsating water streams. This is the only ear care system which to simultaneously visualize, irrigate, suction and tool the ear and it’s cheap compared to the alternative–surgical microscopes which run upwards of $10k.

Razor/Razor Blade Business Model. The visualization and pump will be a one-time purchase. The suction catheters and suction fluid and waste containers will be disposal (the razor blade) components (single use) and will generate on-going revenue.

Clinical Trials. For you FDA phobic investors, like me, you will be relieved to know that the clinical trial are done.  I have to say, the unit is quite cool looking.

First Ear Wax Then Total Ear Care. Ear wax is only the first step in Clear Ear Inc.’s goal to dominate the ear care market.

Team: The founder, Lily Truong, comes by way of Stanford, specifically via the Stanford Biodesign Innovation program. She is an engineering undergraduate and her co-founder and chief medical officer, Vandana Jain, is a surgeon who attended the same Biodesign program as Lily.

First to Party Investors. California Healthcare Foundation and the Fogarty Institute for Innovation.

Takeaway: For the 34M Americans who need hearing aids, children with wax buildup and adults who don’t need hearing aids but can’t hear because of wax, Clear Ear and Bob (Marley) tell you “don’t worry about a thing, ’cause every little thing gonna be all right.”

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Mohamed Kash, Founder & CEO of Yaget.

As Bob Marley said: “Is this love – is this love – is this love – Is this love that I’m feelin’……” which is what Mohamed Kash,  Marketing Founder & CEO of  Yadget (“name your gadget”) Mohammed Sameer,  Technical Co-Founder & CTO were thinking when they decided to let you tag your world with their application.

On Friday, October 19th, 2012 I attended the Global Mobile Internet Conference (SV GMIC) in San Jose. Since the conference organizers gave me a Press Pass, I did an in-person interview with Yadget, currently based in Cairo, Egypt, although normally I only interview SF-Bay Area startups. Mohamed is going to be in Silicon Valley for the next two months talking to investors and possible channel partners. Depending on how this works out, he may relocated his startup to Silicon Valley.

Launch Date? The private beta launched last month. The day of my interview, October 20th, was the launch of the public beta.

Where Do You Download the App? Google play. You can download a browser plugin from the chrome web store.

What is Yaget? A mobile application to leave your mark on any real world object and places around you.

How to Operate?  Download the app from Google play, open the app, connect with Facebook, choose your picture, tag places using twitter-style except replace “#” with “!” then choose a map location to leave your post. You can leave notes on items you want to sell, you can leave a post on an item barcode and leave online content on map locations.

Searching for Content? You can find what others left by scanning barcodes or searching tag names. You can also subscribe to places and objects and receive notifications when people tag them.

Market Differentiation? Yes, there is patentable IP (the algorithm that makes this happen). Unlike other players in this space, Yaget lets you tag objects and places in one app and to link the online content with the physical world.

Revenue? The app is free for the user. There are two (2) revenue streams: 1) brand subscription for the Yadget landing page and 2) payments from bids for key words and product categories.

Takeaway: So “This is love that your feeling” when you create your story of what you like, where you’ve been in one app with Yaget.

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Matthew Scholz, Founder & CEO, Immusoft Corporation

As Bob Marley said: “Stir it up; little darlin’, stir it up. Come on, baby. Come on and stir it up: little darlin’, stir it up. O-oh! It’s been a long, long time, yeah! (stir it, stir it, stir it together).….” which is what Matthew Scholtz, Founder and CEO of Immunsoft Corporation is doing to the whole pharma cartel. “Grow your own” is what a lot of marijuana users do, but that is illegal, what Matthew is doing is legal and brilliant: using the patient’s cells to produce treatment, specifically transforming the patient’s B cells into drug factories.

On Sunday, October 13, 2012, during the lunch break at the Singularity Summit 2012 in San Francisco, Matthew and I chatted about his treatment approach.

Your First Target Disease? MPS I which is incurable and lethal typically by the age of 12. The symptoms are so depressing that I won’t list them. This disease was selected because it is classified as an orphan (rare) disease by the FDA which means the approval process is easier. Orphan disease are those diseases that are so rare that the clinical trials are necessarily smaller  because there aren’t enough patients available to run a large trial. These orphan diseases also tend to be  fatal, another factor limiting the size of the patient pool to run a large trial. The smaller scale makes it a lot more affordable for a new company and the risk tolerance is higher–another bonus for a startup in this space.

What Are the Current MPS I Treatments? ERT (Aldurazyme) which cost $250k/year, provides a modest life extension or  HSCT which requires a 2 year old child to undergo chemotherapy costs $300k-$800k per year.  Most patients get ERT, not both (maybe ERT until the transplant). With the Immusoft’s approach, the patient’s cells produce the treatment, thus combining the benefits of ERT and HSCT.

How Does the Technology Work? It produces long lived plasma cells to migrate to the bone marrow and secrete the therapeutics. As a fail-safe, a suicide gene is added which allows the destruction of the modified cells if necessary.

You Selected MPS I as Your First Target for Ease of FDA Approval. What Are the Big Money Making Targets? Heart disease and using ISP technology to reduce arterial plaque in as little as five (5) weeks. HIV is also in the cross-hairs. They’ve completed the first two in vitro proof of concept studies,  where B cells were taken from a patient’s blood, genetically modified (glow green) and made to produce a broadly neutralizing antibody against HIV as measured by Luminex.

Take Away. Matthew has taken Bob Marley’s suggestion to “stir it up…” by delivering drugs, not with a pill and not by injection, but by turning the patient’s own cells into mini-drug factories so patient’s can go “in vivo” instead of “off shore” to get affordable medications. And yes, “it’s been a long, long time….”

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Robert L. Pakter, M.D., CEO PillJogger, Inc.

As Bob Marley said “So much trouble in the world; So much trouble in the world. All you got to do: give a little (give a little)…..” and who better to do this than Robert L. Pakter, M.D., CEO of  PillJogger, Inc. which occupies the global medication adherence space. Robert’s solution is one of those disruptive technologies that all investors, VCs and angels, are trying to find among the shaft. Yesterday, September 24, 2012, I sat down with Robert in one of those cool, old brick, converted San Francisco buildings and we talked about the global medication adherence issue.

How is Robert L. Pakter, M.D., CEO, a  Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and Stanford trained physician (private practice as a radiologist for 25 years), founder of Core Product Technology, a HealthTech incubator, publisher of numerous scientific journal articles, inventor of multiple medical instruments and musician and writer, too, going to do this? The same way Bob (Marley) did: engage and entertain with each adherence event.  Now Robert can’t provide marijuana like Bob had at his concerts, but he can provide a low-cost tablet device, iTune app and an engaging user experience with mCoupons, rebates and offers personalized to each user based on the retailers’ (i.e. Walgreen’s) loyalty program.

The Problem: Poor Adherence. The annual cost of poor adherence just in the U.S. is $100B in hopitalizations, $290B in health cost, $30B in pharma lost revenues and 89,000 to 125,000 lost lives. As I previously mentioned, the poor adherence (not taking your medicine) is a global problem, so we are talking some really big numbers. Starting October 1, 2012 hospitals with “excess” readmissions with be penalized.  For an example, a patient is admitted with CHF (cardiac heart failure), “cured”, dropped kicked out of the hospital into the arms of his non-medically trained family and then readmitted within 30 days of the discharge with the same problem because he didn’t take his medication or follow post-discharge instructions or both. Some of the most prestigious hospitals will have penalties of $300M initially and this could grow into a $17B problem for these institutions. They are highly incentivized to find a solution.

Adherence is the First Prong of the Trident. There are three elements to the PillJogger total solution. The first is PillJogger Adherence, next is MedWheel and the third is PillJogger Transitional Care.

Worldwide Release Strategy. PillJogger is pursuing an aggressive worldwide release strategy with representation in the EU, Gulf State and Brazil as well as getting representatives in India, China, Scandinavia and Japan.

Take Away: Like Bob Marley songs, blog posts are suppose to be short. So remember poor adherence causes: “so much trouble in the world” and PillJogger is the disruptive solution.  BTW PillJogger’s solution just won a big prize ($$$$), which I’m not suppose to talk about, so I won’t. 

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