Last night Groupvine won an Excellence in Entrepreneurship Award from Wake Forest’s Office of Entrepreneurship & Liberal Arts and the Entrepreneurship Society.

We won in the category of Web-based and software entrepreneurship and was awarded to “recognize individuals who embody the entrepreneurial spirit in thought and action.”

All we can say is that we’re incredibly honored to be recognized like this.  It’s motivating and inspiring.

We’re also grateful for the help, advice and mentoring we’ve received from people like J. Bren Varner, Dr. Betsy Gatewood and Dr. Page West, as well as for all the help Lisa Burton has provided us.  Thank you all very, very much.

Congratulations to the other recipients, as well, including Pat Williams himself — the co-founder and SVP of the Orlando Magic — a WFU alumnus!

Before you run kicking and screaming from this page, I want to share some resources with you if you’re thinking of — or running — a small start-up or business.  Even if you’re in the initial stages of getting something out there, you should think about cash flow. 

It’s true what you hear about cash flow — it’s the lifeblood of a business.  Without the cash to pay the bills and the salaries, there is no business.  It’s incredibly important.

While doing research for Groupvine I’ve come across some great resources and tips for mapping out cash flow estimates, as well as some helpful statistics if you’re building a Web app.

• What exactly is cash flow? A definition from Investopedia
• Cash flow spreadsheets: projecting a firm’s cash flow, projecting when your Web app will make money
• If you’re building a Web app and you have a tiered pricing plan, Ryan Carson says that only 1-2% of your signups will be paying customers
  
• Jason Fried comments on cash flow: “pay attention to cash flow, but don’t obsess“…

That’s all for now.  If you have any methods, tips or tricks for projecting or maximizing cash flow, let’s discuss.

No endorsements here, but apparently you can hack Facebook now.  Some offerings:

• Facebook Autologin - automatically logs you in to Facebook (ever notice that no matter what you do facebook prompts you?)
• Facebook age displayer - displays the age of the profile you’re veiwing thus negating any need for math!
• Random image generator
  - I did not test this one, but in theory it should work. It
  automatically changes the picture ID number in URL to generate a random
  picture.
• Make Facebook Green - this script make facebook green. If you know HTML change the hexadecimal number in the js file to make other colors.

Link: http://www.collegev2.com/?p=42

Joyent is a fantastic product that’s got innovative pricing plans and service offerings, as well a great blog.

I think the mark of an excellent service is a well-thought-out plan for pricing — something that makes sense, is realistic, and is relatively painless for customers.  Just take a look at their pricing plans:

• Monthly plans from $15 to $170 per month, with the minimum plan offering 5GB of storage and 4 users.
• One-time payments from $399 to $1499 with set storage and user limits.
• The ability to purchase what they call a “Joyent Accelerator” that lets customers concerned with security run Joyent behind a firewall — while continuing to enjoy backups, updates, and support.
• Innovative product couplings: the company recently bought TextDrive and Strongspace, a hosting company and an online storage service, respectively.  With their “Three Martini Lunch,” you can get a combination of offerings for a one-time payment of $1399.  Impressive.

Well, there’s some free “earned media” for Joyent — but I respect the company’s willingness to venture into new territory. 

Now, how about a demo login? :)

A conversation about a new color theme between Casey and I:

Scorpyan (1:47:08 PM): makes me want to get out my fertilizer and grow some plants
iwantpugh (1:47:22 PM): DO IT

UPDATE: iwantpugh (1:49:57 PM): Bacardi and Cola.. DO IT

I’d like to get some feedback from anyone out there who has personal experience — or knows someone — with getting angel investment for a startup.

For clarity’s sake, an angel investor is an individual who personally invests in a startup-type business venture, usually with sums ranging from $50,000 to $1,000,000 (or more).  This person typically has relevant business experience, can give powerful advice and can tap his own personal network for help.  Here’s a more complete explanation.

I’ve read a variety of perspectives — some who say that the cost of venture capital is extremely high, that working on the business “on the side” is the best way to go, but others that have had clear success (eBay, Google, yeah, yeah, you know).

Talk to me if you have any insight at all.