Last week’s circuit of events for me began with the Social Media Club Austin and ended with 4 days in Atlanta, partly there in the tech scene and concluding with the Georgia Tech Homecoming scene.

Here are some timely notes from the week:

From the SMCA, moderated by Tim Hayden of 44Doors and featuring Rachel Ouens of Mutual Mobile, Steve Guengerich of Appconomy, Erik McMillan of BestFit Mobile, and Rick Orr of Tabbedout:

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Steve Guengerich has concluded that all the gold in mobile will be in a bank in China and has partnered with Neusoft there to tackle that exploding market with a multi-function platform.  

Rick Orr has claimed the term “Far Field Communications” to describe tabbedout’s ability to let you close out after you’ve gotten into the cab for the ride home.

The group generally agreed there is more collaboration than competition among them because there is so much demand and sharing even of things like code libraries can be to everyone’s benefit.

Phones get higher usage than tablets, but tablets are where the money is spent.

Merchants hold some level of consumer trust and can overcome concerns about mobile payments.  But, there needs to be more transparency about data collection and usage.

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Erik McMillan cited the statistic that only 1% of apps are opened 90 days or later after they are first downloaded.  It’s a hit driven business.  Building an overnight app is likely to result in a hobby more so than a revenue stream.

Rachel Ouens commented on things that are not working:  Blender, Sonar, Bump, etc.   People don’t particularly want to meet strangers.  Too many apps invite users to share things they don’t want to share or that nobody cares about.  QR codes were hot for a while but just aren’t natural in use and may be on the way out.

Many brands that have tried the mobile space are unhappy and turning to new developers for “do-overs.” They have been getting no downloads and no ROI.   They need to view mobile as a source of content creation or to leverage loyalty programs, coupons, etc.

After some discussion about waiting for older consumers to die off so newspapers and magazines could become totally digital, it occurred to me that tabbedout might add an “eternity” feature for those who are permanently departing and will no longer require newsprint.

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I arrived in the ATL on the heels of Venture Atlanta.   Jesse Dyer (relation) covered the first day – startups – and that was followed by a day of A, B and/or C round presentations.

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If you are not a long-time resident of Atlanta and want to see a comprehensive video of the history of its technology community, look at this documentary prepared by John Yates and his team at Morris, Manning & Martin.  As a relative newcomer to Austin, I’d sure like to see something similar here.

At any rate, VA’s startup day was very well received with all the presentations above average.  Women entrepreneurs were present in force and brought some welcome diversity.

I toured the new Flash Point facility in Tech Square, an open room with a well supported YCombinator model (sans the $150K graduation gift), and the energy there was palpable. Word also came of several new funds being raised and readied for deployment to deals that fit the Atlanta style.

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On the other hand, I heard several people say the second day’s presentations at VA by more advanced companies generally weren’t nearly as well done.  Evidently it’s never too late to take advantage of some solid coaching on that all important investor pitch.

I commented in my post last week about Atlanta’s boosterism at VA, and a good friend reminded me of an old line (unattributed) that someone stated in the early 90’s during the run up to the Olympics bid, paraphrased:  “If Atlanta sucked as hard as it blows, the Atlantic would be pulled forward a couple of hundred miles and the town would have beachfront property.”  Hey it worked!

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The Tech-Clemson game was a thriller.  The final was 31-17 Tech, but the suspense was greater than the score suggests.  There was one major moment that is worth noting for its implications to entrepreneurs:

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With Tech leading 31-10 and about to score from the 1-yard line, a Clemson lineman jumped over the Tech line prior to the snap and caused a fumble, which Clemson recovered in its own end zone.  This was a blatant offside penalty, but it was not called and was not reviewed.  (Tech coach Paul Johnson later used the words:  “We got hosed.”)  Clemson got the ball and marched 99+ yards in the ensuing drive to make it 31-17.

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The good news is that the outcome of the game was not affected.  But, the lesson is that not all your competitors will play by the rules, and they may or may not get caught when they don’t, so you have to be prepared to stick with your own game plan and not get thrown mentally off balance.  Many of the rules of business changed during the Recession, and there were plenty of developments in the “life’s not fair” category.   Being a successful entrepreneur has much to do with living with such ambiguity and ever changing circumstances and finding a way to prevail in the end. Paul Johnson did just that by running out the clock with an ever-so-methodical ground game in his basic triple-option.

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