Summit 2008 | Nov 2008 | by Jeremy Yuricek

This weekend I will be in NY for a little relaxing, theorizing and planning with frequent collaborator Jeremy Yuricek at Y-Industries.

Jeremy’s help and encouragement is the reason I first launched a website back in 2002 (the defunct davidson2016.org), only to see it grow into taylordavidson.com over time…

It’s always great to see past clients continue to progress. ClearCount Medical Solutions has raised $4.1 M in Series A financing from Draper Triangle Ventures:

ClearCount Medical Solutions, a developer of RFID technology used to detect and track the location of surgical sponges. The Pittsburgh company just brought in $4.1 million in first-round financing, earmarked for the wide release of its commercial product next year. The round was led by Draper Triangle Ventures and included unnamed angel investors.

What the news reports and press release leave out is that ClearCount was founded by two friends of mine (Gautam Gandhi and Steven Fleck) from Carnegie Mellon’s Tepper School of Business MBA program. They took an idea and worked on it during school, winning business plan competitions and raising angel capital before committing to it full-time after graduation. This Series A financing comes after years of their hard work to develop the product and the business, including winning patents, educating people about the problems and inefficiencies of current methods of tracking surgical sponges and instruments during surgeries, working with medical institutions to test their product in the field, clearing FDA approval and tirelessly promoting their solution.

Congrats…

More news:

• ClearCount Medical Solutions receives $4.1 million in VC funding

I’ll start with a valuable perspective for entrepreneurs, startups, creatives or anyone trying to take something from an idea to a reality. Hugh MacLeod at GapingVoid:

“Good ideas have lonely childhoods”. When I say, “Ignore Everybody”, I don’t mean, “Ignore all people, at all times, forever”. No, other people’s feedback has an important role. Of course it does. It’s more like, the better the idea, the more “out there” it initially will seem to other people, even people you like and respect. So there’ll be a time when you have to press on, alone. This is normal. This is to be expected.

I highly, highly encourage reading the rest of the post and basically everything MacLeod writes.

MacLeod points out an unappetizing truth for entrepreneurs: the best ideas are likely the ones that everybody hates. Therefore, expect to hear “no” from prospective clients, customers, investors, employees; expect to hear resounding silence from the marketplace; expect even trusted advisers and friends to fail to understand your idea or grasp the opportunity.

The hardest part is knowing when the resounding “no” is just noise or a signal. And that can only come from you.

—

I’m starting a series of posts on advice for entrepreneurs, aimed at people looking to make the transition from being an employee to creating their own business. There is a cacophony of advice out there, but so much of the advice is short-sighted, biased by personal experiences, or just simply wrong. I don’t have all the answers, but I can help you think through the right questions.

If you have any questions you would like answered on how to brave the entrepreneurial path and how to make the transition from an employee to an employer (of yourself), please drop a line in the comments, by email, by Twitter or by the contact form. I’d love to get your thoughts…

The Board at BarCampRDU | Raleigh, NC, USA | Aug 2008

After going to RTP Startup Weekend a couple weeks ago, another Saturday in Raleigh, NC at BarCampRDU seemed like a great idea. In the end there was some interesting sessions on technical and business topics, but I had a better time meeting some really interesting people: enjoyed all the conversations and looking forward to more in the future.

Thanks to organizers Wayne Sutton and Dave Johnson…

More about BarCampRDU:

• What is a BarCamp?
• Details about BarCampRDU and the blog
• Photos: mine on Flickr, and everyone’s on Flickr
• The conversation on Twitter

News and updates from RTP Startup Weekend and Bars For Us are continuing to trickle in:

• RTP Startup Weekend will be covered by CBNC at 10:00 and 4:00 EST Friday, on the NBC Today Show 7:30 AM EST Saturday morning, and the NBC Weekend Nightly News at 6:30 EST either Saturday or Sunday. Check on the CNBC News Team on twitter for updates.
• More coverage will be on CNBC.com starting Friday. The “confessional video” is online now.
• Check out (and vote) the video pitch for Bars For Us on TechCrunch
• The Scavenja, MyFriesSuck and Dealcastr teams are continuing to update their products and launch new features and scavenger hunts.

The Bars For Us team is working hard on updating the solution to incorporate a lot of the ideas we were not able to include by last Sunday’s proof of concept launch. We’ll be looking forward to announcing the updated service.

Additionally, the team will be looking forward to start talking to potential partners interested in launching Bars For Us in their city. Email biz@barsforus.com or call 415.287.7610 for details.

UPDATED 7.18.08

• The 10 AM CNBC segment on CNBC.com.
• The Weekend Today Show segment is getting pushed to NEXT weekend due to some breaking news.

UPDATED 7.22.08

• Ron Mott on MSNBC.com
• MSNBC News on RTP Startup Weekend