Got a Web 2.0 Startup? Microsoft Wants YOU!
Within weeks of beginning my technology blogging career in the Spring of 2006, I had the pleasure of interviewing Dan’l Lewin, Microsoft Corporate Vice President of Strategic and Emerging Business Development, to get a first hand look at how he leverages a worldwide VC network for surfacing and nurturing emerging venture capital backed technology start-ups with the potential for being the “next big things” AND for extending the Microsoft platform, a multi-billion dollar business, and growing.
I spoke with Lewin to discuss how he helps grow the Microsoft platforms business by enabling innovation and accelerating the software ecosystem. As a leader in the DPE, Microsoft’s Developer and Platform Evangelism, it is Lewin’s mission to find “incredible companies” and help them do “incredible things,” with a helping hand from Microsoft.
Don Dodge is part of Lewin’s team and works to discover those incredible companies. Today, Dodge shares how one of the Web 2.0 entrepreneurial ventures he works with as part of Microsoft’s Startup Accelerator program has achieved accelerated development, Me.dium, “a web browser plug-in that turns web browsing into a social experience.”
How does Microsoft identify start-ups that will foster productive use of the Microsoft platform? What does Microsoft do to promote platform growth via new technologies?
Lewin told me he works closely with the VC community as a collaborative filter; Because VCs seek extraordinary returns, they only invest in companies judged to have a high probability of achieving inordinate market success. By aligning with VC backed technology start-ups, therefore, Microsoft can dedicate resources to software companies with the best chance of achieving market leadership. Market leading companies with software solutions that significantly extend the Microsoft platform represent the targeted end-game for Lewin, and his team.
To successfully achieve the end-game sooner, rather than later, Microsoft Developer and Platform Evangelism provides software developers with “the best tools, programs, services and content offerings to create the next generation of world-class software.” Lewin spoke to me of a “virtuous cycle”: For every $1 generated in Microsoft revenues, $6 - $11 is generated throughout the larger Microsoft ecosystem. Lewin aims to ensure that the Microsoft ecosystem “share of market” grows faster than the whole market.
David Mandell, VP at Me.dium, evangelizes Microsoft evangelism, Dodge reports at his blog:
Getting direct connections to developers within Microsoft speeded our own internal development time significantly, I would estimate about a 50% velocity increase…
The Emerging Business Team and The Microsoft Startup Accelerator Program have truly turned into an invaluable resource for Me.dium. We would never have imagined that a company as large as Microsoft would have the desire to focus on a small startup such as Me.dium, but we were completely blown away by the attention and access to people that we were given and owe much or our current success to that relationship.
I also know first hand about the Microsoft Emerging Business Team’s passion for helping startups such as Me.dium realize their visions sooner rather than later. I had the pleasure of sharing the stage with Don Dodge as a fellow speaker (along with Eric Auchard, Reuters) on the closing media panel of the Council For Entrepreneurial Development’s annual Tech Conference in the North Carolina Research Triangle last October and appreciated the lessons from the field he shared with the enthusiastic South East entrepreneurs.
MORE: CED Tech 2007: 30 Cool Startups, But NO Facebook Apps and DayJet CEO: Business Models Drive Disruption, NOT Technology and The Future of Technology VC is Now in Research Triangle
ALSO: Startups: Who Needs Business Plans? Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Mayfield, Sequoia… and Want Sequoia Funding? Submit a Business Plan: Here’s How AND Kleiner Perkins Venture Capital: Business Plans Please
WANT TO SUBMIT YOUR BUSINESS PLAN?: Draper Fisher Jurvetson ~ Mayfield Fund ~ Sequoia Capital ~ Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers
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