Welcome to Las Vegas Startups

Fox Channel 5 in Las Vegas just did a report on a number of Las Vegas startup companies along with Usr Lib and the Downtown project. The report includes Vegas Startup founders Judd Lillestrand, CEO of ScripSmart, Mark Johnson, Chief Brand Officer of Ayloo, and Dylan Bathurst, CEO of Rumgr. Zach Ware also talked about the Downtown project.

It’s always great to see the local TV stations and other local press covering what’s happening with Las Vegas startup companies and the broader Vegas Tech community. I have a feeling Matt DeLucia and Fox are going to be filing a lot more stories about Las Vegas startup companies.

Here’s the video of the coverage in case you missed it:

My friend, Dan Barnes, recently sent me a link to a KickStarter project he and his partners had created called Phone Soap: Simultaneously Charge and Sanitize Your Phone. Dan Barnes lives in Las Vegas and has been working really hard on this project. It’s a project that I’m sure many germophobes will appreciate as well.

The cool part is that Dan and his team have already raised $7,098 as of this posting from 119 backers. That’s a really great start to their project. Although, they need to reach their goal of $18,000 in the next 27 days in order to fully fund the project.

I saw some of their first designs for this product and they’ve come a really long way since those first designs. Their current design is much slicker and I can see a lot of people really liking it. If you like their idea and want to support Vegas Tech, back their project on Kickstarter.

While this is the first time I’ve posted about a startup company using Kickstarter and similar sites to raise money, I’m sure it won’t be the last. In fact, Vegas Tech company Romotive also got some initial funding through Kickstarter as well.

I also found another Downtown Project on IndieGoGo as well called Build a Greener Block. As it says in it’s description, “Who says there’s no community in Las Vegas… because we’re building one – green and sustainably.” They’ve already raised $3,499 towards their $6,500 goal and have 24 days left. Sounds like they’re going to put on a pretty killer event down town.

This is just one example why startup companies will continue to move to Las Vegas. The Las Vegas community is going through its own startup phase and a lot of smart and passionate people are doing a lot of interesting things to see what sticks. It’s an exciting time to be an entrepreneur in Las Vegas.

Tomorrow, March 29, the White House is coming to Las Vegas to hold an Urban Economic Forum in Las Vegas. It should be an interesting event for Las Vegas that will bring together a lot of the most successful business people in Las Vegas to connect and hopefully help each other out in these trying economic times.

I have a feeling that the Vegas Tech startup community will be at the event in full force. One of the cool things I just found out today is that they’ll be live streaming the event on the White House website. So, if you can’t attend the live event, you can at least check out the live stream.

Some might argue that it’s hard to network with other Las Vegas startup companies and business people on a live stream. While this is true to a large extent, that doesn’t mean you can’t network with other Las Vegas business owners. All you have to do is hop on Twitter and search for the hashtag #UrbanEconForum. A number of people have already tweeted that they’ll be live tweeting the event.

They also just sent out the final agenda for the Las Vegas Urban Economic Forum as well. I’ve embedded it below. I hope to see and/or tweet with many of you tomorrow at the Las Vegas Convention Center.

This post was originally posted by John Lynn on his personal Las Vegas Startup Blog.

I know I’m kind of crazy to admit it, but one of my hobbies is to read venture capitalist and startup entrepreneur blogs. Maybe one day I’ll be brave enough to go after VC money for a startup company of my own. I haven’t needed to do so yet, but maybe one day. Until then, I’ll continue to enjoy it as a hobby.

As I mentioned in my last update, I’ve been doing what I can to help grow the internet startup eco-system in Las Vegas. As I continue to meet more Las Vegas entrepreneurs, I see all sorts of challenges and issues related to the Las Vegas startup eco-system. One of those issues is having more Fall Back Las Vegas Startup Companies.

This is one of the powerful features of a city with a strong startup environment. The numbers are against every startup company. If I remember right, it’s something like 9 of every 10 startup companies fails (and that might be being generous). That means the majority of new companies that are created are going to fail. We need more Las Vegas startup companies so that if and when a startup company fails the founders and employees of those companies know they have other companies they can go and work for.

One beauty of silicon valley and other startup hubs is that the culture accepts companies failing and there are other opportunities if and when it does fail. Certainly even in silicon valley they aren’t happy when the company they’re working for fails. However, at least when it does happen, they have a lot of other companies that will hire them. They don’t have to go start parking cars to pay the bills, but can move on to another startup company. Rinse and repeat.

Ok, I may be oversimplifying it a little bit, but the ability of a city to absorb talented people who worked for a startup company that’s failed is something I’d love to see happen in Las Vegas.

Creating a list of Las Vegas startup companies like we’ve started to do is the first step. Events like Startup Weekend Las Vegas and the Las Vegas Jellies are another step. Little by little, we’ll get there. The strip wasn’t built in a night. A Las Vegas startup eco-system won’t be either.

One perception of Las Vegas is that it’s not a very startup-rich environment, particularly in high tech. Turns out that a couple of weeks of research and talking to entrepreneurs has blown that perception away. I’ve found 15 startups in the Valley (two founded by the same individual!) and I’m sure there are even more that I don’t know about. In fact, if you’re part of one not listed below, please comment on this article or email me at rick -at- vegasstartups.com.

Whether you’re at one of the startups listed below, one I’m not aware of yet, or just an interested party, please email me to be added to a non-spammy email list (your email address will never be sold or given away) of Las Vegas High Tech Entrepreneurs. We’ll use the list to send out occasional announcements about events of interest and updates on the scene.

That’s the good news. So what’s the bad news? An area of nearly 2 million people should be able to support dozens of startups. But more importantly, there should be a community for founders, management, and employees to share experiences, war stories, and tips. Right now, each company is (rightfully so) focused on their company, market, and competition. They don’t have a lot of spare cycles to build a community and/or find likeminded others. That needs to change. And that’s the purpose of this site and blog — to create a central place for early- and mid-stage Las Vegas tech companies to find each other, find talent, and support each other. There are lots of great people and ideas out there — but I fear they are so spread out, it’s hard to get traction. One or two people at the Starbucks on Green Valley Parkway and Pebble Road, one at the one on Flamingo and Arville, and another few at the one on Paradise and Harmon.

Of course, since we don’t have the biggest tech community, I also believe we need a centralized place to find each other physically and have those serendipitous conversations that lead down so many good paths. For a number of reasons, we’re promoting downtown as that area. It’s an area that would benefit from continuing the revitalization that pioneers such as Jennifer and Michael Cornthwaite have started. To that end, we’ve started modestly — one evening every couple of weeks to chat with others, find a mentor, get some advice, or hone your elevator pitch. Note: this is not a sales opportunity for commercial vendors. It’s a grass-roots effort to give tech folks an outlet to talk to other tech folks. These sessions, called jellies, are announced on our sister site, Las Vegas Work At Jelly (http://wiki.workatjelly.com/w/page/38951064/Las-Vegas-Jelly).

So, you’re probably wondering about that list of startups. Well, here it is.

• GivingSports.com/GivingSquare.com
• HealthcareScene.com and Pure TV Network
• iStreamPlanet.com
• 1800registry.com
• slickdeals.net
• SkywireMedia.com
• 9seeds.com
• modulesphere.com
• bloomworlds.com
• trekadoo.com
• insuremonkey.com
• jobbi.com
• worlddoc.com
• impactsports.com
• xefinancial.com

In future installments, we’ll talk to the entrepreneurs behind these companies and explore who they are, what they do, and why they decided to start their companies in Las Vegas. I think you’ll be impressed and inspired by their stories. Please consider joining their ranks and help make Las Vegas what it can be — a diversified economy that pays homage to its history as a gaming-driven town while helping it branch out into other industries in a big way.

Thanks for stopping by the home of a new website that will talk about being an entrepreneur in Las Vegas. If you’ve ever wanted to start a company in Las Vegas, this is the place where you’ll learn about the growing Las Vegas startup community (this includes Henderson Startup companies too).

Las Vegas is a unique place to start a company and so we’ll be doing our best to highlight the benefits and challenges of running a startup company in Las Vegas.

If you are part of a startup company in Las Vegas, then definitely leave a comment on this post. The first step in the process of VegasStartups.com is to gather all of the various Las Vegas startup companies into one place. By doing so, we can all benefit from participating in the fun, exciting and challenging startup lifestyle.