Barry Uphoff is Managing Principal at Capricorn Investment Group and has more than two decades of experience managing private equity, credit and hedge funds.  Barry earned a BA from Johns Hopkins University with highest honors and Phi Beta Kappa distinction.  He read for a Diploma in Law and an MSc in Medicine at Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar and received an MBA from the University of Chicago, Graduate School of Business with highest honors.  Barry Uphoff is a native Nebraskan who now lives in Palo Alto.

The Raikes School of Computer Science and Management is a nationally recognized leader in interdisciplinary computer science and business honors education.  The School recruits high achieving students and provides them with an intense and well-rounded educational experience that results in graduates that are world class innovators and leaders.

For more on this great event, you can check out an article written by Patti Vannoy over at Silicon Prairie News:

Capital Insights: From car wash client to company acquisition, Archrival founders reflect on growth

Hall started a product called PMOG, later changed to The Nethernet, which focused on making web browsing into a game format. His company started in July 2007 and ran until December 2009. In that time the company raised two rounds of funding, hired and de-hired 12 people and built a user base of around 130,000.

In this candid discussion Hall talks about the joys and tribulations of the startup and where things went wrong. Topics included games, mobile, the Internet, San Francisco, startups, scale and focus.

The Q&A session at the end of the presentation we felt had a lot of good information so we have included it here as well.

Q&A

Nebraska has long lagged behind the rest of the nation when it comes to financing for startup businesses.

More than one ranking has put the state near the bottom — or in some cases at the bottom — in venture capital funding. And other forms of financing such as angel investments and seed capital also can be hard to find.

But that may be changing.

Within the past few months, nearly $60 million in new public and private funds has become available for startup and other small businesses.

Nebraska Global Investment Co. — a venture capital firm that finances the creation and development of software companies in Nebraska – earlier this year closed its fund at $37.3 million, about $7 million more than it hoped for and about $10 million less than it could have raised.

Add to that more than $21 million in federal and state money targeted at startup companies, entrepreneurs and innovation, and you’ve suddenly got a bigger pot.

“It’s a good problem to have,” said Dan Hoffman, executive director of Invest Nebraska. The nonprofit group has a contract with the state to create angel investment funds to match a one-time infusion of $12.6 million from the federal government.

This post is from guest contributor Wade Sikkink:  After spending the first part of my professional life inside huge organizations (US Navy, Fortune 500 companies) I became interested in startups and entrepreneurship. I started dabbling in side business ventures while reading more and more about startups and the startup scene.  I’ve been involved in several business ventures, some modestly successful, some not so much and one that imploded leaving a huge crater. I’ve learned a lot along the way and want to share some of what I’ve learned.

It’s that time of year again. No, we’re not talking about holiday cheer and presents. Entrepreneurs in Nebraska always look forward to the annual Nebraska East 2 West Venture Competition hosted by Invest Nebraska. E2W is a one-of-a-kind statewide competition that features some of the most promising startups in the state. This year’s competition was held Nov. 18 at Talent Plus in Lincoln.

Although the competition doesn’t get much popular press, a good crop of six finalist companies were featured. This year’s finalists were chosen by a panel of six judges and featured a wide range of industries and stages. Companies submitted a business plan for the judges to review. The top six were invited to make a 15-minute pitch to the judges and answer questions for an additional 10 minutes.

This is a venture investment competition, so a little review on pitching is in order. Entrepreneurs usually are enamored with their product or service; however, potential investors are more interested in the business opportunity. In short, the focus needs to be on how the business will make money. Some of the companies had a handle on this. Some did not.

This might bring to mind the famous story of when legendary angel investor Ron Conway met with Larry Page and Sergey Brin to talk about their new search engine. They had no business and no clue how it would make money. But Conway was so impressed with the product that he invested and the rest, as they say, is history.

But most entrepreneurs are not Larry Page. They should stay focused on the business opportunity.

So, who were the finalists?

Pro-fit Performance Club Fitting, which has developed an innovative, patented software program for properly fitting golf clubs.

The Coloring Book Artist, which produces customized coloring books using the talents of Nebraska artists to celebrate life.

RestingSpot, which provides a unique combination of mobile and web technologies to connect the memories of loved ones who have died with the precise location of grave sites.

Ace Ortho Solutions, a custom manufacturer of orthopedic braces for dogs.

Agricultural Flaming Innovations, which develops flaming equipment for full-season organic weed control.

Mobile Truckr, which produces a mobile technology platform to handle document acquisition and transmission within the trucking industry.

Clearly, a wide range of industries were represented. The finalists ranged from ideas barely a month old to established companies with hundreds of thousands of dollars in revenue. They all also had different issues to solve in getting their businesses to grow. Some likely will face challenges scaling up to anything bigger than a hobby. Others don’t have a finalized plan for distribution. Another had a huge market opportunity, but no solid way to monetize it.

In the end, the judges seemed to go with the company that had a big market, a good way to monetize its product, established technology and a plan to scale. Pro-fit Performance Club Fitting was chosen as the winner for 2011. The company wins a $10,000 cash prize and the opportunity to negotiate with Invest Nebraska for a further $50,000 investment. This Lincoln-based business has an established technology that has been proven in the market. It is in the process of converting its Windows-based software to a web-based platform, which will allow the company to scale to golf pros nationwide relatively easy.

Attending the presentations is fun and gives you an up-close look at some of the up-and-coming companies in Nebraska.  As a bonus, there are opportunities to network and hob nob with the entrepreneurs when the competition is over. In the future, hopefully more people will learn about the event so a bigger audience can hear from another group of exciting new companies in Nebraska.

• Be ready for change
• Embrace technology

[Shane Farritor's Innovation Seminar series was filmed live at the NET studios in Lincoln, NE. This series is designed to change the way you think about business and engineering. It is designed to encourage you to work with imagination, to improvise, and to try unconventional approaches.]

“Orbiting the Giant Hairball,” on Nov. 3rd, gives entrepreneurs strategies to avoid being bogged down in fixed practices and techniques. In addition, the discussion introduces tools to use within the creative workplace environment.

[Shane Farritor's Innovation Seminar series was filmed live at the NET studios in Lincoln, NE. This series is designed to change the way you think about business and engineering. It is designed to encourage you to work with imagination, to improvise, and to try unconventional approaches.]

The “Brainstorming” installation of the series, held Nov. 1, examines the role and effectiveness of traditional brainstorming activities. Farritor presented examples of efficient and productive alternatives that generate ideas.

Oct 20 brought “Little Bets,” devoted to understanding how small risks can result in big payoffs, and exploring how learning to recognize small opportunities translates into more innovation for a business.