Especially during turbulent economic times, convincing a lender to believe in your business is challenging, especially for new businesses. But what people forget about is the fact that lenders are always looking for great investment opportunities. Pitching an idea without any financial history is tough but a strong idea, a sound business plan, and thorough due diligence will always peak a lender’s interest.

READ the rest of the interview at Grow Smart Business…

IN THE MEAN TIME….

Register for the GrowSmartBusiness Webinar at www.growsmartbusiness.com/webinar.

Find out YOUR marketing and finance score by taking the survey – your results will be benchmarked against the Small Business Success Index.

Recently, I had the opportunity to attend DubMe DC, which was the launch party event for Dub – a FREE, extremely convenient and innovative technology solution for exchanging business cards and instantaneously managing contact information with your smart phone.

Sure, you have probably heard of LinkedIn or Plaxo. Granted, those early entrants do business information exchange well in certain aspects, but no one has cracked the mobile puzzle yet. It may seem simple, but then again, simple and elegant are often the hardest to accomplish.

DubMeNow might have finally cracked the code.

The Launch Party was at Sequoia’s in DC, Wednesday, Nov 19th to about 1,000 people and there was tremendous buzz around this product.

Photo by: Kenyoa

Dub is working with Microsoft, Google, LinkedIn, Apple and RIM on their mobile technology. To learn more visit DubMeNow.com or email info@dubmenow.com.

Next week we have a two part interview with Chris Hopkinson, Director of Business Development, to discuss more about the company and its plans. Next month, once I have more of a chance to play with Dub, a review of the product and a conversation with the CEO, Manoj Ramnani.

The stuff on the wall ran the entire spectrum of interesting topics.

Source: Joe Logon

There was a case study on how C-SPAN launched their social media site for the election in about 11 days. There was a session on CEO’s discussing their pain and problems in a sort of therapy session. There were demos of products, tips on using javascript and even a session on juggling. Yes, juggling. You can see the full schedule here.

About 150 self-described geeks got together Saturday in a Georgetown at the Center for Digital Imaging Arts at Boston University who generously donated their space for our use. We all spent the day consuming free breakfast and lunch courtesy of a great list of sponsors (including Network Solutions) and wrapped everything up over a beer at a local Georgetown bar to do some serious, yet fun networking.

All in all, a great day and I look forward to the next one.

If you want to see what other people thought, check out coverage of the event at Justin Thorp’s blog and the Washington Post.

What is a “BarCamp”?

BarCamp DC is an ad-hoc unconference and is part of the larger BarCamp movement. While there are topics suggested for discussion, there is no set agenda until everyone gathers. Attendees are required to participate to some degree: either by giving a presentation, demo, etc. or by facilitating a group discussion. Topics are flexible, as well.
BarCamp has a few rules, as outlined on the Rules of BarCamp page. In summary:

1st Rule: You do talk about Bar Camp.
2nd Rule: You do blog about Bar Camp.
3rd Rule: If you want to present, you must write your topic and name in a presentation slot.
4th Rule: Only three word intros.
5th Rule: As many presentations at a time as facilities allow for.
6th Rule: No pre-scheduled presentations, no tourists.
7th Rule: Presentations will go on as long as they have to or until they run into another presentation slot.
8th Rule: If this is your first time at BarCamp, you have to present. (Ok, you don’t really have to, but try to find someone to present with, or at least ask questions and be an interactive participant.)

Where is it going on?

Center for Digital Imaging Arts at Boston University 1055 Thomas Jefferson Street NW Washington, DC 20007 38.903762, -77.059765

What are they going to be discussing?

- Amazon Web Services & Google App Engine
- Application Scaling
- Backup+Restore
- Data Portability
- Getting Started
- Kids & Computers
- Marketing
- Mapping, Neogeography, Neocartography, GeoWeb
- Mobile Web – Android/iPhone/Web
- OpenID/OAuth
- Privacy
- Productivity
- Rails vs Django
- Semantic Web
- Social Media
- Typography
- Venture Capital/Investment
- Web Accessibility
- Web App Security
- Widgets

In the DC area this weekend and interested in Attending?

Simply register at http://barcampdc2.eventbrite.com/

Oh wait, it is sold out. Sorry about that. They do have a waiting list.

Can’t make it? Then follow along…