milestone9 demo day 5/16/2014

About a week ago, I checked out the #9MileLabs graduation day for their Cohort II at the Four Seasons Hotel in downtown Seattle.  9Mile Labs is a B2B (Business to Business) focused accelerator in the Seattle area.  Since I recently experienced the birth of a startup from the Startup Weekend experience for Seattle ReDesign on March 23, 2014, I got to attend the #9MileLabs Milestone9 event from the perspective of a founder.  I took some notes along the way, so thought I'd share what my takeaways were.

Rebecca Lovell, @LovelLetters, spoke in the beginning of the evening.  The photo I took is fuzzy, unfortunately.  Rebecca represents and supports the Seattle Startup Community by connecting startups to resources on behalf of the City of Seattle.  Our startup, GiftStarter, has been meeting up with her on a bi-weekly basis as a mentor and we love her energy, her suggestions, and willingness to help connect us to others in the Seattle community.  We're very lucky to have her in Seattle, and we're lucky to be in Seattle.  

GhostTruck

WOW.  Their presentation was KICKASS, beautiful, energetic, ... just awesome.  The presentation covered everything - what, who, how, when, pricing, competition, market sizing, roadmap, business model, next steps...  They are about helping their customer go from "searching for customers" to "shopping for customers".  Rideshare for those bulky items - yes, I get it!  Note to self, energy that accelerates to the end creates an awesome presentation experience. B2B2C

GreenKrate

Something about delivering household items and groceries to customers faster, saving time.  Kivin, the CEO covered the what, how, the market, the value prop, the business model, the milestones...  he was trying to sell the promise of more time for family, exercising instead of having to deal with painful retail shopping...  Note to self, presentation must carry an overarching story arc.  B2B2C

EngineRoom360

Mogens and Ramesh were in our @SWNext program (pre-accelerator) together with us for 5 weeks, so we were very excited to see our Next cohort members on stage.  Super awesome humans they are.  Their presentation covered the problem and pain, how it works, the roadmap, market, competition, and the business model.  Data driven marketing analytics platform play focused on enabling the SMB online retailer - and one of the only pure B2B startups that we saw the entire evening.

Connect Consignment

Brent brought a more wholesome feel to the B2B night in his presentation talking about his experience with his wife's consignment store.  Used the what, how, market, value prop, GTM story to sell the ability to sell anything, to anyone, anywhere SaaS business.  Again, B2B2C.

Angles Media

B2B analytics platform technology play.  Not much of a B2C story and so, difficult to get that excited about or write much about.  Analytics that help optimize content to drive sales conversions using CRM, analysis, and marketing.  Note to self, the lack of a B2C or a human story really hurts the presentation experience for the audience.  It's really hard to really "get" what something is unless you can tie some sort of story or emotion to it.  

Congrats to Cohort II of 9Mile Labs!

Pawzii

I now proudly wear their sticker on my notebook that I carry with me everywhere.  The presentation started off as a pet licensing business for stray pets...  I was uncomfortable and confused with how could this be a B2B business?...  then the CEO (Alec Matias) went into the meat of the story - the revenue growth, real customers, market sizing, the roadmap ...  getting to a place where they own the data on the pet owners themselves.  That's when he had me.  Note to self, don't jump to conclusions too quickly. B2B2C

ThemeDragon

Women in technology --- the two founders are women, and Lindsey Nelson presented.  I was excited to see her on stage, representing women and technology in B2B up there.  A marketing analytics program focused on helping the SMB create more effective videos.  The presentation had a strong marketing flavor to it - she talked about the value prop, the market... introduced "Amy", their user persona.  She reiterated the value prop, talked about the business model, in a way, teaching the audience about her business at the same time.  B2B with a B2C story.

3D Product Imaging

CEO Derek came on stage with a laser show and dance music buggy wuggy'in it on stage.  Hilarious.  So much energy.  Covered the usual TAM, market, roadmap, solution, GTM strategy, business model, ...  They provide the 3rd dimension, 3D imaging of products for retailers.  I went and spoke to them afterwards, their target customer is actually the brands themselves, not the retailer.  I liked their flare --- whole team was in sparkle futuristic white jackets.  Huge team.  B2B with a B2C story.

Cloud Admin

Alfredo is the CEO and for some reason, I really felt myself pulled in and rooting for his presentation.  The presentation brought you as the listener to a place that was higher and bigger than Seattle or a country.  It was about enabling a whole continent and region of people in Latin America.  He's focused on helping the Mexico & Latin American SMB, and did a great job of telling that B2C story for his B2B business.

Really awesome experience to attend the Milestone 9 demo day for 9Mile Labs.  I was very surprised to hear so many B2B's with that human/customer story threaded through their presentations and businesses.  Some common themes running through with mission driven companies trying to better, help, support to make the world a better place.  Similarities around analytics and data driven solutions.  Subscriptions rules the business models.  Many of them already had acquired customers during the program.  Every single one of the founders in the program talked about the 9Mile Labs program positively - the mentoring, the leadership coaching, and the commitment of the 9Mile Labs program partners and mentors to helping the founders grow great companies.

Inspired,
Arry