2011 December Archive - The May Report

Archive for December, 2011

The May Report: 12/24/2011: It’s Christmas Eve day and my brother is less than 30 minutes away from picking me up to go to the land of shopping malls and car dealerships — Orland Park, and I’m having a mini anxiety attack: I have no idea what to get my nieces who are 7, 5, and 3 — as if they don’t already have everything — books, board games like Clue or Sorry or maybe a jigsaw puzzle? — what’s an uncle to do?; Anyway, much is on my mind: Is Groupon secretly transferring data to the “anti-Groupon” Belly.com?; What secrets about Eric Lefkofsky can Joel Berez dig up since it turns out that he lives two doors or a back yard away?; I hear that Cubs season ticket sales are way down; Culver has discounted space at 744 N. Wells to $199/mo.; SEO expert Steve Fisher believes that Google ads are bs; Dabble is still talking about expanding to other cities and the first one is Milwaukee; Mike Fekety told me he worked for a firm which got $52MM and was sold for $800K; and much more; in honor of my dad who would have been 86 on Dec. 22nd, I’m printing a humorous article he wrote — e-gads, now I sound like Jerry Mitchell; and we still await an announcement on the 50k sf tech center — a closely held secret; I have a list of tons of MIT-EF regulars like Richard Cross, Roy Klein, Bill McDonald, Ray Markman, Kent Vincent, Jack Quill, Tom Lemanski and many others who did not show up — nonetheless, they had at least 80 on the boat

The May Report December 24th, 2011

The May Report: 12/24/2011: It’s Christmas Eve day and my brother is less than 30 minutes away from picking me up to go to the land of shopping malls and car dealerships — Orland Park, and I’m having a mini anxiety attack: I have no idea what to get my nieces who are 7, 5,…

The May Report: 12/20/2011: Apologies to Nancy Munro of the MIT-EF since I was hoping to have this out before noon, but I overslept and got to dialysis late –anyway, life moves on; Navteq’s CEO Larry Kaplan is going to head up a downstate VC firm which has internet gaming as one of its four investment areas; Reader Fred Jones calculates that New World Ventures could get a quick 4x return on its $20MM investment in Facebook; Neil Kane released from the TMR stockade four days early on his 138 day sentence so that he can celebrate Chanukah with his family, and Bob Geras gets out early too, even though what Neil is doing now with all the boards he’s on fits his MO — he’s the guy who wants all the accolades for finishing the race when he hasn’t even started the race since Neil does things a** backwards. Just ask him (and Al Wasserberger) what they sold their last start-up for; A correction, sort of: Tony Milazzo says that his removal as condo board president at that cauldron of intrigue and scheming at 111 E. Chestnut was illegal and has been nullified since they removed him without proper procedure — nonetheless, Milazzo believes that Craig Nelson is trying to raid the treasury with the help of Yves Fredette and he believes that the condo owners would not brook Craig’s attempt to get CNA to pay him $20K to $30K — don’t even think of moving into that building which has been home to Jane Byrne, John Cusack, and Jack Ryan

The May Report December 20th, 2011

The May Report: 12/20/2011: Apologies to Nancy Munro of the MIT-EF since I was hoping to have this out before noon, but I overslept and got to dialysis late –anyway, life moves on; Navteq’s CEO Larry Kaplan is going to head up a downstate VC firm which has internet gaming as one of its four…

The May Report: 12/19/2011: A fascinating article in Bloomberg dissecting

The May Report December 19th, 2011

The May Report: 12/19/2011: A fascinating article in Bloomberg dissecting the data analysis techniques being used by the Obama 2012 campaign here in Chicago — and much of this ties into Harper Reed who spoke on Wednesday at the CEC but unless he was speaking in a code — get the double entendre? — that…

The May Report: 12/16/2011: John Pytel and GoSoapBox.com wins $25,000 in cash prize at the Lean Start-up Circle finals Thursday night before an audience of 200; apps for Metro Chicago announces finalists and some companies we’ve been following are included: Taxi Share, SpotHero and FasPark; Traci Schaeffer from farmfixe.com has to get an award of her own for the largest group of friends and devoted fans — she must have had about twenty friends and supporters there; Mark Lawrence of SpotHero has attended as many events as I have; RIP Christopher Hitchens; Happy birthday Ludwig; btw Kevin Willer wanted to know from the panelists what their first rock concert was

The May Report December 16th, 2011

The May Report: 12/16/2011: John Pytel and GoSoapBox.com wins $25,000 in cash prize at the Lean Start-up Circle finals Thursday night before an audience of 200; apps for Metro Chicago announces finalists and some companies we’ve been following are included: Taxi Share, SpotHero and FasPark; Traci Schaeffer from farmfixe.com has to get an award of…

The May Report: 12/14/2011: Logan LaHive’s Belly, fka BellyFlop,, has been funded by Lightbank for an undisclosed amount, most likely in their sweet spot range of $1MM and it was featured today in TechCrunch, but I’m confused because at the CEC Momentum awards dinner on Oct. 6th, Logan told me he was talking to Lightbank, but in the TMR archives, on September 2nd, I printed a list of the Lightbank portfolio taken directly from their website and BellyFlop was there, so were they deliberately stalling off the “official” announcement of funding? — Now I really don’t know WHEN Belly got the money; A great deal of material from the CEC Start-up panel and speakers today with 250 attending so I’ll be up late: 10 things from today: 1. Kevin Willer and the CEC has moved out of the Aon bldg to 222 W. Hubbard where they’re renting desks; Viewpoints, TechWeek, Built-in-Chicago, Cheeky Chicago are in the same bldg; 2. The big question –unanswered — is where is the 50k sf Tech Center that Moog, Willer, Pritzker and others have found — they are waiting to sign the lease, but the location is a closely held secret; 3. I didn’t know that New World Ventures put $20MM into Facebook a few mos. ago — at what valuation??!; 4. Matt McCall says there were 13 venture funds which did one deal this year locally but it will be down to 7 or 8 funds next year — and Calpers has cut their venture investing from 7% to 1%! — meanwhile seed and angel deals are on the rise; 5. Brett Goldstein, Chief Data Officer at the city says that the city’s recently put an unprecedented amount of data on the net and is looking at Mongo database; 6. Neal Sales Griffin of Code Academy says that half the students are flying in from elsewhere; 7. Brittany Laughlin says gTrot’s part of an 11 company venture or seed accelerator in the offices of Lightbank at 600 W. Chicago; 8. Chuck Templeton says 2011 was the year we got the chip off our shoulder in Chicago — “we are who we are”; 9. Matt Spiegel, now of Tap Me, says we’ll see 2 new IPOs in 2012 from unexpected places; Harper Reed declared to be the coolest tech guy and much more to come…

The May Report December 14th, 2011

The May Report: 12/14/2011: Logan LaHive’s Belly, fka BellyFlop,, has been funded by Lightbank for an undisclosed amount, most likely in their sweet spot range of $1MM and it was featured today in TechCrunch, but I’m confused because at the CEC Momentum awards dinner on Oct. 6th, Logan told me he was talking to Lightbank,…

The May Report: 12/13/2011: Uki Lucas’ venture CyberWalkabout.com gets investment from Scott Kluth, Founder and CEO of CouponCabin.com; My information is that Terry Ivan Howerton II has basically decoupled himself or dismounted from the ITA — if so, it’s about time!; and as far as the CAAT school is concerned, Terry’s whole game plan was to use the charter school to get in good with Mayor Daley, but now that Rahm is Mayor, he doesn’t even know what the ITA is — do you think he should?; As far as TechWeek is concerned, I have no hard info., but there may have been a rift over where to spend their time, Chicago or San Francisco?; MoMo seeks to find its identity amidst the plethora of local mobile organizations and is giving lip service at least to hooking up with other cities and counties, but first, they have to jettison the idea that everything centers on events and speakers and move to a resource hub and educational model; it seems that Alex Bratton’s scheme for domination of all local mobility organizations is moving right along sine he sent one of his guys from Lisle to be a mole at the MoMo meeting; my cab driver last night told me MJ was going to be hanging out at the Hotel Intercontinental around 10pm

The May Report December 13th, 2011

The May Report: 12/13/2011: Uki Lucas’ venture CyberWalkabout.com gets investment from Scott Kluth, Founder and CEO of CouponCabin.com; My information is that Terry Ivan Howerton II has basically decoupled himself or dismounted from the ITA — if so, it’s about time!; and as far as the CAAT school is concerned, Terry’s whole game plan was…

The May Report: 12/11/2011: Very surprising news — (thanks Joshua Gander and Ed Domain)!: Pasky and Domaracki have split up and a number of the TechWeek staffers have left including Danny Bloomfield — all this on top of their having put on a successful event in July 2011 and having gotten funding!; Churchwell clarifies what his issue is with me and I apologize — glad we’re able to correct the record and clear the air; A voice from the past: Ron Reimann gives us an update about what he’s been up to in MN; rumor is that Mike Becker has bolted from Pretto’s operation; Tom Bennett on the Blago sentence

The May Report December 11th, 2011

The May Report: 12/11/2011: Very surprising news — (thanks Joshua Gander and Ed Domain)!: Pasky and Domaracki have split up and a number of the TechWeek staffers have left including Danny Bloomfield — all this on top of their having put on a successful event in July 2011 and having gotten funding!; Churchwell clarifies what…

The May Report: 12/9/2011: Churchwell’s complaint; Uki Lukas bolts Sears

The May Report December 9th, 2011

The May Report: 12/9/2011: Churchwell’s complaint; Uki Lukas bolts Sears Holdings as the company continues to hire UE experts, front-end developers, and visual designers; Josh Metnick’s Chicago.com offers real email features and a NYT article; The worm turns: JWillie declares that the Acronym Bash (with the lowest attendance in years) su**ed; TMR obtains a letter…

The May Report: 12/5/2011: Starting the stab at Holiday parties — where on Earth is Melanie

The May Report December 6th, 2011

The May Report: 12/5/2011: Starting the stab at Holiday parties — where on Earth is Melanie when I need her?; Acronym Bash tomorrow night — let’s get the calendar section on the new site going!; A few regular events of the last few years are not happening this year: Tech the Halls and Windy City…

The May Report: 12/4/2011: I’m quite surprised since I attended most of the

The May Report December 4th, 2011

The May Report: 12/4/2011: I’m quite surprised since I attended most of the trial including all the opening and closing arguments plus most of the key testimony, but a three judge Illinois appeals court panel just reversed the $11MM judgment that Lew Borsellino won against Gerry Putnam and the Townsends – Lew expected punitive damages…

Archive for December, 2011

The May Report: 12/19/2011: A fascinating article in Bloomberg dissecting

The May Report: 12/9/2011: Churchwell’s complaint; Uki Lukas bolts Sears

The May Report: 12/5/2011: Starting the stab at Holiday parties — where on Earth is Melanie

The May Report: 12/4/2011: I’m quite surprised since I attended most of the

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