24Nov

Startups Embracing Washington as Simply Part of the Job

In the early days, tech companies like Google and Microsoft could make it a point of pride not to be involved with Washington politics. They were companies perceived as independent from, or even above politics and politicians. Now, in the golden age of the tech startup, leaders are having to not only accept Washington lobbying as a part of their operation, but embrace it.

According to the New York Times, startups have received a special kind of attention this year. Uber and AirBnb, two immensely popular convenience apps and startup companies have been in the public spotlight after facing a barrage of questions about their operations. Uber in particular ended up in long legal battles with the taxi companies of various cities. Startups that focus on large-scale innovations have gotten the message and are folding it into their day-to-day. Zenefits for example, an online benefits manager, is only two years old but is a member of two trade groups and has hired lobbyists and public relations strategists from the Obama administration.

“For these new companies, the scale of innovation is so big and impactful they necessitate interacting with Washington writ large,” said Kenneth Baer, a former spokesman for the Office of Management and Budget who now advises Zenefits. “There are huge amounts of questions that society has to grapple with that didn’t exist before.”

While overall money spent lobbying has decreased slightly over the last five years, for startups and young tech companies, it has tripled to $47.5 million. It’s hard to say what the effect has been so far, but for Uber and AirBnb at least, it has let them keep growing. For many startups though, the goal of lobbying in the short term is simply to create good will.

Coinbase, a digital currency platform, is one company who knew they would need to look for help in Washington right away. Knowing that finance is a highly regulated industry, they hired John Collins, former senior advisor to the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee as their 50th employee. He is now their head of government affairs.

Mr. Collins has to prepare talking points about Bitcoin and regularly meets with officials at the Treasury Department, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Federal Trade Commission and multiple congressional committees. Every month he and the company’s chief executive meet with government officials. “So much of what I do day in and day out is not even advocating for anything necessarily but talking to folks about the technology,” Mr. Collins said. Bitcoin remains a largely misunderstood concept among people and almost exclusively receives negative media attention.

Startups and tech companies are having to get into conversations with Washington earlier and earlier. Marcela Sapone, co-founder of Hello Alfred, has said she wants lawmakers to consider new regulations that would relieve companies from providing some costly benefits. Such a large change requires careful handling.

“Why are we engaging so early? Mostly because we had to,” she said. “We have no choice but to get into these conversations.”

 

07May

Crowdfunding – Democracy to the Business World

Todd Crosland GrowthAs the financial landscape continues to develop, and money can more easily travel from investors to businesses, certain products that show great promise see a greater chance of spotlight. Any start-up today would be remiss to overlook opportunities for crowdfunding in a technologically powered, democratically run world.

Crowdfunding is the easiest way for young entrepreneurs who are trying to introduce their idea to reach their funding goals through mass communication with and access to individual investors and investment firms. Because of crowdfunding, small ventures can reach mainstream appeal with relative ease.

The availability of funds helped Utah-based DemoChimp reach its financial goals by providing a connection to the outside. Businesses in Utah often struggle to reach the hotspots of angel investing (for example New York) and require crowdfunding efforts more than the average start-up. The newest in the digital community is DemoChimp. DemoChimp is primarily a business-to-business Software as a Service program that creates automated demonstrations of a product based on input criteria designated important by the customization of the user. It separates itself from more simple powerpoint slide introductions by designing mobile and visually interactive versions of a product for consensus-based presentation. It self-describes as software that “automates custom product demos to accelerate sales.” Its goal is to expedite, and nearly bypass, the process of manually arranging product demos to increase the adaptability of a typically, or formerly crystallized process. It is a highly organized form of data consolidation in a rapidly accelerating field. DemoChimp has already shown greater agility and dissemination of information with users feeling more comfortable about the priorities they can set for certain pieces or aspects of information. DemoChimp responds to the needs of the individual while representing the offerings of a business. It is cloud accessible and continues to facilitate the traveling of information across and outside of company lines.

DemoChimp & Crowdfunding

DemoChimp exemplified the essential benefit of crowdfunding by successfully raising almost $3 million from varied capital investors. It did this with the help of Albion Financial, Peak Ventures, and Seed Equity, a worldwide broker dealer and funding firm most affiliated with investments in start-up companies and digital campaigns. Seed Equity’s interest means a lot for DemoChimp, as the crowdfunding firm brandishes a personal mission of connecting the most promising business opportunities with global institutional and individual investors. This money raised from friends, related personnel, private investors, and large firms have established DemoChimp as a major player in the realm of business-to-business transactions.

The product continues to expand as it ventures into user-based automation, intelligently designing a demo around the specific demands of the viewer. Reports show that the artificial intelligence is embryonic but positively developing. This money raised from venture capital will be directed toward advancements in the software’s intelligence and marketing capacities. It will seek to find a balanced medium of granularity to assure maximum speed of operation with minimum overhead of communication. Funds not spent on the technical and operational components of the product will be directed toward new leads and customer acquisition. DemoChimp is already being operated by top corporations such as Microsoft and Hewlett-Packard, and its expansion into the non-digital realms is imminent.