.Net as an Awesome Startup Platform

Rudy Lacovara

A History of Startup Platforms

1998 - Web 1.0A large percentage of startups are built on ASP

2008 – Web 2.0Most startups are built on Ruby/Rails or PHP. ASP.Net is ignored as a startup platform.

What is a Startup?

“A regular company executes on a known business model. A startup is a company searching for a business model.”

- Unknown (but I’m sure I stole it from someone)

What I need in a Startup Architecture

• Speed– If I’m heading toward the ground I want to build

that parachute as fast as possible.

• Flexibility– I assume that I’m going to make mistakes. Making

big changes must be fast and easy.

Four Steps to Launching a Startup

1. Signup for BizSpark

2. Design and Mockup

3. Publish a Marketing Website

4. Build your Minimum Viable Product

1. Signup for BizSpark

Go to http://www.microsoft.com/bizspark/ and Microsoft will give you every software product they make for FREE for 3 years if your company meet these requirements:• You are developing software• You are less than 3 years old• You have less than $1,000,000 annual revenue• You have some type of website up (even 1 page)• You can get someone like these guys to nominate you.

– Joe Shirey, Microsoft Architecture Evangelist http://www.joeshirey.com/

– Dave Drach, Managing Director, Microsoft Emerging Business Teamhttp://www.bizspark.com/Blogs/david_drach/default.aspx

2. Design and Mockup

Balsamiq Mockups Demo http://balsamiq.com/

3. Publish a Marketing Site

Cheap but good looking website design99 designs ($400 - $1000)http://99designs.com/

Cheap but solid hostingDiscount ASP.Net ($20/month for web and DB)http://discountasp.net/

4. Build Your Minimum Viable Product

HireFlo Architecture Demo• Asp.Net MVC = good• No Azure!!• No Entity Framework?• Embrace both HTML and SQL

Customer data requires better hosting:($118 - $250/month for cloud server) http://www.rackspace.com/cloud/

We are in a Startup Renaissance!!(and Boulder / Denver is a hot spot)

• newtech Meetup – About 4 tech startups present in Denver and Boulder every month. The Denver meetup meets on Auraria Campus. The Boulder meetup has free beer! http://www.bdnewtech.com/

• TechStars – One of the first Y Combinator style accelerator programs for early stage startups.

http://www.techstars.org/

• Open Angel Forum – Angel Investors meet in Boulder about twice a year to hear pitches from early stage startups and possibly fund them. http://openangelforum.com/

• StartupDigest – Weekly email digest by Chris McCann that tracks all of the tech startup related events in the Boulder / Denver area. http://startupdigest.com/

• Lean Startup – Best practices for launching a startup by Eric Reis. Must see video here:http://ecorner.stanford.edu/authorMaterialInfo.html?mid=2329

• Feld Thoughts – Amazing blog by Brad Feld, Boulder resident and vocal venture capitalist.http://www.feld.com/wp/