TextBound is bound to be a success

A close acquaintance of mine, Raj was written up on the front page of the Memphis Business Journal concerning his new company, TextBound. Eric Mathews, another individual I am pleased to be acquainted with and who runs the parent incubator company, Mercury Labs, is also pictured.

Below is a description of how this interesting service works.

Mercury hot for text messaging – Memphis Business Journal:: “TextBound founder Rajesh Ramanand illustrates: You drive by a house for sale; you see a sign telling you to send a text message containing a certain keyword to a certain number; you instantly receive a text message with the house’s price, number of bedrooms, exact address and the name of the listing agent. Clicking on a link in the text message will send you to a TextBound-hosted Web site with photos of the property, the appraised value of nearby houses, etc.”

[Photo Credit: ALAN HOWELL | MBJ]

Go for a ride in the Tesla

Elon Musk, the Chairman of Tesla Motors(ex Paypal founder), takes superblogger Scoble for a ride in the Tesla. (With an occasional appearance by Jason Calacanis (Mahalo founder) driving along side trying to keep up in his ‘vette 🙂 )
The Tesla was profiled a while back on Tomorrow’s Trends.

Scoble conducts an interview while riding in the car.
Interesting…

The secret to raising a successful kid

According to research, focusing on natural intellect and talent is not the best way to raise a successful kid. The secret is to focus on effort, moving forward, and not giving up. They call it a “growth mindset” – meaning persistence.

The Secret to Raising Smart Kids: Scientific American: “# Many people assume that superior intelligence or ability is a key to success. But more than three decades of research shows that an overemphasis on intellect or talent‚Äîand the implication that such traits are innate and fixed‚Äîleaves people vulnerable to failure, fearful of challenges and unmotivated to learn.
# Teaching people to have a ‘growth mind-set,’ which encourages a focus on effort rather than on intelligence or talent, produces high achievers in school and in life.
# Parents and teachers can engender a growth mind-set in children by praising them for their effort or persistence (rather than for their intelligence), by telling success stories that emphasize hard work and love of learning, and by teaching them about the brain as a learning machine.”

The Doomsday vault

A “doomsday vault” for seeds is opening in order to warehouse seeds for generations.

‘Doomsday’ seed vault opens in Norway – CNN.com: “A vast underground vault storing millions of seeds from around the world took delivery of its first shipment Tuesday.

Dubbed the ‘Doomsday Vault,’ the seed bank on a remote island near the Arctic Ocean is considered the ultimate safety net for the world’s seed collections, protecting them from a wide range of threats including war, natural disasters, lack of funding or simply poor agricultural management.”

Startup Weekend Coming to Memphis

Memphis has been chosen to host a “startup weekend” in late May. The word has been hot around Memphis the last couple of weeks concerning this event.

Startup Weekend is a 3 day event where local entrepreneurs get together and launch a company over a weekend.

Andrew Hyde, founder of Startup Weekend had a few comments on StartupWeekend.com: “About two months ago I was contacted by Harry Brown, requesting that Memphis be added to the list of Startup Weekend location possibilities. Memphis‚Äôs community motivated, and launched themselves to the top of the list. Memphis, (a place known for it‚Äôs BBQ and tradition, and not necessarily their tech startup talent) has really impressed me in how their community got together.We talked about location, and Harry introduced me to Eric Mathews of Mercury Labs.”

This is great news for Memphis. A special thanks to Harry Brown, Eric and other local leaders.

If the votes were any indication, this is looking good.

This should be interesting. I think that it will be fun and I look forward to meeting any of the local talent that I have not already met.