Over the past year, we’ve had the opportunity to participate in the development and launch of the Speak Easy, a place for entrepreneurs, startups, and the folks who support them to work, play, and collaborate. Crafting a brand, web presence, and influencing the structure itself, we couldn’t have been happier to launch the Speak Easy on January 18th.
Taking a cue from coastal co-work spaces like Grind in New York, a group of 8 investors and entrepreneurs (including our own Kristian Andersen) set out to create a gathering place for those active in the startup community. The resulting space is a combination of a 17th century salon, coffee shop, and…
IFC : Fall Trend Report | Image courtesy of Marc McCoy
KA+A recently partnered up with Indianapolis Fashion Collective, in an effort to transform the way that Indy is building its fashion community. The Collective had been operating for a year, hosting special events and creating a member-based network that would support and mentor designers, photographers, stylists, models, and fashion professionals in the city. The big vision was to create a live/work fashion district in the heart of Indy. It was a great start, and the right minds were coming together, but the burden of the dream was growing heavier and not enough people were joining the group to help carry it.
There’s a great post over on The 99% that advises on how you can get more out of daily to-dos, by applying n-dimensional thinking. The resulting list is more dynamic and will help you (1) Focus on completing the most valuable tasks, and (2) learn new skills while executing them.
But there actually may be a third, more exciting value prop to amplifying your list: innovation, or even invention, of products.
The post details the common scenario of proposal writing:
For example, let’s say you have to draft up a contract for a client project, a rather humdrum task. Applying N-dimensional thinking, you decide to transform this task by increasing its overall efficiency (one new dimension), improving the contract template design (a second dimension), and learning
Once you step inside the tech world, it’s easy to forget about a slowing world economy, whether its a “sticky patch or a meltdown.” Tech bubble or not, there’s a profusion of new businesses, ideas and growth. And, as discussed at the recent D9 Conference, the Gang of Four (Google, Apple, Amazon and Facebook) is leading the charge as people rush to build on top of these new competing platforms.
This venture capital conference, is an arena for fundable companies, developing disruptive technologies, to share their business idea to venture capitalists, angel investors, business executives, and fellow entrepreneurs. In the words of Verge’s Matt Hunckler,
If you have a viable software or tech product–whether you’re finishing up building your beta, or already have Fortune 500 clients — the Innovation Showcase is your opportunity to connect your company to over five hundred people from around the country in what could be Indy’s
We’ve worked with a lot of startups, and many of us also run our own on the side (TinderBox and IndySpectator). Through these experiences, we’ve stockpiled some great information and resources. Here are a some of my newfound favorites.
The Startup Daily Featuring a tip a day, The Startup Daily blog gives it to you simple with great ideas (e.g. Stop designing products) from great books (e.g. Subject to Change).
Recently I had the experience of a KA+A client, when our designers took on the branding and design of IndySpectator, a venture I co-founded with Jenni Edwards. The goal of IndySpectator is to help people discover new ways to love Indy. The medium? Email.
If you think Email is dead, let Doug Karr persuade you otherwise:
“There’s no better medium to carry a message like this than email. It’s exclusive, it’s private, and it’s classy. A blog is a great medium, but broadcasting to everyone puts the content in a different perspective, and wouldn’t be consumed or reacted to the same way.”
After launching in April, we were able to prove that there was an interest in our content. We gained several hundred subscribers…
Last Thursday night, KA+A co-hosted a launch party celebrating TinderBox, a company already enjoying some early success. Guests included the who’s who of Indy’s startup and tech community, investors, clients, families and friends. If you weren’t able to make it out to Broad Ripple to help celebrate, don’t worry. I’ve recapped the entire experience for you right here!
WHO TinderBox is a technology startup company that developed an extremely useful web-based application, that makes it easy to write, manage, track, and send business proposals electronically. For the past year, TinderBox has quickly been building this concept and already boasts an impressive array of investors, clients, and results.
WHEN Fresh from Chicago, where TinderBox launched at midVentures…
Last Friday I had the opportunity to participate on the Alumni Panel for Butler’s College of Business Freshman Seminar. Recent grads were brought in, who remembered what it was like to be in the shoes of a freshman: searching to declare a major, wondering what organizations to get involved in, assessing what types of jobs and internships they should try to secure, and, simply, which classes are worthwhile. But it’s more than the ability to relate that we alumni offered – it’s the post-college assessment of what activities and knowledge have “worth” when applied in the real world. Advice from the alum included:
develop your communication skills – verbal, written, visual
work and life are arguably inseparable – find something you love
For those of you that didn’t make it to The Combine this past weekend, make sure you add it to your to do list next year. Our good friends at SproutBox were one of the primary sponsors of the event and they, along with their partners, put on a great event.
On Saturday I lead a workshop/presentation called “Experience Design for Startups”. It’s embedded above for your viewing pleasure or you can view “Experience Design for Startups” at SlideShare.
