Pass It On: 2012 Forward Tech Festival

Calling all Wisconsin entrepreneurs (established OR aspiring!)—the 2012 Forward Technology Festival is taking place right now, right here in Madison, WI. One of the event planners is Matt Younkle (you know him as CEO & Co-founder of Murfie), so I asked him a few Qs about the fest and local startup communities in general.

Here are the As.

Sum up the 2012 Forward Technology Festival in 3 sentences or less.
FTF is the premier event series for Wisconsin entrepreneurs that has grown to 16 events over 11 days. The format encourages cross-connections across all areas of tech: software, web, biotech and nanotech. Many of the events involve free beer.

Who’s wearing their event-planner hat in order to make this year’s festival happen?
The best part about this event is that it’s organized by entrepreneurs, for entrepreneurs. More than a dozen startup founders from around Madison are involved in making things happen, including Preston and myself here at Murfie.

Is there anyone in particular who should be psyched to attend the fest?
FTF is perfect for anyone who has founded a startup or is thinking about starting something.

Why do you think the Midwest, specifically Madison, is gaining steam as a hub for high-tech development?
It wasn’t that long ago that launching a tech company was incredibly expensive. In that environment, smaller markets like Madison were at a distinct disadvantage. Tools and techniques for launching companies are now widely known, and the capital required to launch a startup is as low as ever. Take away requirements for major capital, and Madison looks pretty attractive. We have the necessary IQ (Madison has the most graduate degrees per capita of any city in the U.S.) and work ethic required to succeed, without the attitude.

In your opinion, what are the key ingredients to building a robust tech scene?
An environment that fosters creativity, innovation and great ideas, and the talent and capital required to turn those ideas into reality.

Got any nifty tips for aspiring entrepreneurs? (Things at Murfie are going pretty darn well.)
Stay lean: involve real customers as early as possible in your product development process. And, start building your network now, so you’ll be ready when you need to raise capital later.

Vote Murfie 2012

You guys, we have the opportunity to make Murfie (that’s us!) Madison’s Favorite Tech Start-up. If you like us, I mean really like us, please cast your vote by Sunday, June 24 on the Isthmus‘ Madison’s Favorites Poll page.

Just enter “Murfie” in the “Favorite Tech Start-up” field (which is located under “Places Around Town” on the ballot). The best part is you don’t even have to fill out the entire ballot in order to submit it, so just make sure to fill in that one blank with Murfie.

Results will be published in August in the Isthmus‘ Annual Manual, as well as on their website Isthmus.com.

Did you vote yet? Good. Now tell your friends to do the same! We’ll be darn sure to send you an air five AND thank you in our acceptance speech. ;)

A Solid Fundation

Fundation? Yep, I purposely misspelled that. I wanted to give a nice shout-out to the fact that Murfie is solidly funded for the year. In January 2012, we closed a funding round of $1.4 million, which gives Murfie a solid foundation to forge ahead with new phases of development. The funds will also help us scale up our technical and operational infrastructure as well as sharpen up our marketing initiatives.

Here’s the full press release »

So, why are we speaking of this solid fundation again? Well, some folks were quite dispirited by the recent unavailability of album art and audio clips on our site… but with our solid resources, Murfie is actually in great shape. Thousands of CDs arrive from our customers every week, sales and trades continue apace, and we’re presently negotiating to restore licensed access as well as contemplating options and alternatives.

If you’ve got any looming questions for us, please feel free to give us a shout at info@murfie.com. The crew at Murfie is there for you!

Murfie, Funding and TechStars

This post belongs to Murfie Musings–a series where folks at Murfie and our guests take the time to share what Murfie is up to as well as explore issues that matter to media ecology.

It raised a few eyebrows in the tech-startup business press when we announced raising money in conjunction with joining the TechStars Boston 2012 class. If we’ve already raised capital, the thinking goes, then what’s the point?

It’s true that a crucial objective of many companies at TechStars is raising their first real round of seed capital. Turns out there are also plenty of funded companies that participate in TechStars, too. Murfie can now be added to this growing list.

I’m a competitive guy. Most entrepreneurs are. The competition to make it into TechStars is intense for a startup at any stage of growth, and it’s an awesome group that gets selected to participate. I think that what our team has built is incredible, and it’s great to see recognition of that via our invitation into the TechStars community. We’re midway through the second week of the program, and I feel privileged to be surrounded by such an amazing bunch of entrepreneurs.

So why TechStars for Murfie? Because seed funding is only one small step along a long path toward success. We need help developing our marketing strategy. We need help simplifying our message. We need help nailing our metrics. We need help establishing strong connections to additional capital for our next big raise. Murfie has a long way to go, and we want to be able to crush it every step of the way. That’s why TechStars is absolutely the perfect place for Murfie right now.

Murfie Is Hiring: Open Developer Position

Attention all you super talented web developers. The greatest news you will ever hear: Murfie. is. hiring. If you’ve got back-end and UX chops, and killer programming moves, show us your stuff. We wanna see what you can do.

We most certainly value a rock solid skill set, but we’re also lookin’ for someone who’s versatile and ambitious. We’re a growing startup, so the workload will be varied and interesting. We also like to think our work environment is pretty darn fun. Check out this job posting for more details.

Interested? Please contact Preston Austin, preston@murfie.com, or Jason Gullickson, jason@murfie.com.