We’re excited to announce our latest release and feature upgrades designed to save you time and simplify the user experience. The full list of changes can be viewed on our Support site in the Customer Forums. One of the biggest changes is the display and interaction with the Parties field.
The display takes up less space on the Summary page and there is now an optional Note box where you can label the parties.You can see more contact information by simply hovering your cursor over the name of the Party. This improvement is the result of customer feedback. Previously you could not see all of the contact information, only the address.
Also, you will notice when adding a new Party rather than a drop-down of all contacts we give you a text box. You can simply start typing and we’ll attempt to match with an existing contact. If the contact you are entering doesn’t exist yet you’ll have the option to add the contact plus information.
On the Auto Extraction Results page you will find these changes have been made as well. Please let us know what you think.
I was invited by Inc. magazine senior editor Rod Kurtz to participate in the magazine’s Knowledge Series panel last night in Austin. The event, titled “Growth, Guts and Glory” was part of a four-city series being hosted by Inc. The topic was raising capital. I was on the panel along with Joel Trammell, CEO of NetQoS; Larry Warnock, CEO of Phurnace Software; and Patrick Durbin, CEO of Planview.
There were a group of local entrepreneurs with a wide variety of questions concerning the details of raising capital including the appropriate time, source and amount. There are no easy answers to these questions, since most scenarios have to be analyzed on a case by case basis. Some common concerns that were discussed were current low valuations amid the turbulent economic conditions. The consensus was that start ups must not lose focus on their product or services during their efforts to get capital. A strong product or service, including revenues and enthusiastic customers, will only help a company’s position when trying to raise capital.
Ultimately it would be optimum if a company does not need capital and can fund growth organically, but this is not the usual scenario. A lot of these decisions are dictated by the business model, the market conditions, and the effective implementation of the desired capital. Obviously there is a tremendous amount of market research and planning required to closely estimate your burn rate, runway and needed capital. Even if you decide not to raise capital, that’s a worthwhile exercise. And lastly, partnering with the right investors, whether angels or VC’s, can be a make or break decision, so choose wisely.
After seeing some interest in our customer base from nonprofit organizations, Mumboe decided to exhibit at the Greenlights for NonProfit Success 7th Annual Crossroads Conference. We met a lot of great people and helped get the word out about Mumboe as an easy, affordable choice to help manage all kinds of business agreements.
Mumboe Booth at Greenlights nonprofit conference
We were pleasantly surprised to see a number of other technology companies exhibiting at the conference. And there was actually another locally based company specializing in Ruby on Rails called Donor Tools. I thought our new Mumboe shirts looked good, but Ryan showed us up by having his kids show up in Donor Tools shirts.
We held a drawing for an iPod Touch, anyone who visited the booth and took a quick survey was entered into the contest. Didn’t win the prize? Be sure to look for us at our next event on October 16th at InnoTech Austin.
People here in Austin know what a great place it is to live, but it’s always nice to get some recognition that our local pride is warranted. That’s why it was good to see that the popular personal finance site Kiplinger’s just named Austin to its 2008 list of Best Cities to Live, Work and Play. Austin came in at #6, due to its combination of “laid-back, rockers and tacos atmosphere” and bustling economy. According to the listing, 36% of Austin’s workforce are in the “creative class” while the cost-of-living index remains below the national average. The article goes on to explain, “Already home to the University of Texas, the state capitol and a bustling music scene, Austin has lately expanded its economy to include digital media, green energy and biotech, creating 114,000 [jobs] in the area in the last five years.”
So if you haven’t been here yet, come to Austin, y’all. But be warned, you wouldn’t be the first one to decide you want to stay.
Mumboe’s CEO, Bill Kane, was interviewed today on AustinStartup.com. The blog’s Q&A Wednesday series features interviews with executives from Austin-based hot startups such as Lombardi Software, Sailpoint and Spiceworks. In addition to talking about Mumboe’s recent product launch and growth plans, Bill answers such pressing questions as “How will Mumboe make money?” and the all-important “What’s up with the “e” in Mumboe?” Read the full interview here.
I stopped by the Salesforce.com Roadshow in Austin on Tuesday afternoon at the Hilton downtown. Nothing earth shattering to report, but the folks from SFDC, like Pat Morrisey, gave some great demos/presentations. They continue to promote their platform as a service (Force.com), and talked about the continued growth of AppExchange. For companies like Mumboe, AppExchange is a great marketplace. There seem to be a lot of SaaS application marketplaces popping up lately, like WebEx Connect and Google Solutions Marketplace. I think all of those are great news for ISVs. More channels make distribution easier, more affordable and more scalable. The trick with all of these platforms and marketplaces will be the integration of the individual applications.
I was hoping for a repeat performance of the great free food served up at the OpSource Breakfast that morning (that I blogged about in my previous post), but it was not to be, just box lunches (soggy sandwiches). I guess you get what you pay for.
OpSource and OnDemand Solutions/Scio Consulting hosted a breakfast on Tuesday in Austin to discuss the challenges and opportunities in the SaaS community. First of all, I have to mention the breakfast spread at the Omni. I thought I had entered Valhalla when I opened the silver serving tray and found about 15 lbs. of bacon. Not the flimsy Denny’s/Waffle House kind; but the thick cut, goodness from the magical pig. I almost skipped the meeting to nap afterwords, but glad I didn’t.
There were a few behind-the-firewall companies in attendance that were either attempting to make the transition to SaaS, or to offer both solutions at the same time. The second option seems to be the trickiest, although I’m sure there’s a marketing/positioning answer to it. Cannibalization seems to be a major concern, since customers are asking providers for SaaS solutions that offer a significant reduction in costs compared to their ‘enterprisey’ counterparts. However, many of the participants were SaaS only and they were mostly focused on best practices, cloud computing/hosting, pricing, billing & metering, etc. Greg Spicer from OpSource had a lot of good suggestions throughout the meeting. I think the consensus was that SaaS is inevitably going to gain acceptance in the enterprise community, although there will always be those holdouts who will not accept an on-demand solution or multi-tenant architecture (and that’s OK). Speaking as an Austin-based company, we need more get-togethers like this to help drive the discussion. I’m sure they have dozens of events like this every week in Silicon Valley, but here in Austin we could use more.
Since we are based here in Austin, SXSW is almost mandatory for us here at Mumboe, especially the Interactive part of the conference. Jason Fried of 37signals delivered a great presentation on Saturday afternoon, discussing his company’s vision on development, products and approach to work. Lots of Rails developers were in attendance, as would be expected.
Sunday was the notorious Mark Zuckerberg interview by Sarah Lacy. Wow, that was the craziest thing I’ve seen at a conference. Things got really intense almost immediately. What started as a low-level mumur during the first 15 minutes or so turned into shouts by the 40 minute point. Total Battle Royale by the end of it. Of course, it was all anyone could talk about afterward. I saw her at one of the parties, and the video bloggers were all over her. She seemed in good spirits, all things considered.
Hopefully the hoopla over the interview doesn’t overshadow what turned out to be a great conference. There were 15-20 interesting things going on every hour from 10am to 6pm. Almost forgot, awesome presentation by our friend Lindsey Simon from Google on Saturday morning. If you’ve never been to the conference before (and even if you have) I highly encourage you to put it on your calendar for next year. Lots of fun and some great content.
