Nick Haschka

After learning the hard way that we needed to focus on our passion, the project on exploring solar opportunities in Arizona began to heat up. Our first read-out got the project’s sponsor increasingly excited about moving forward with a large investment in a solar power plant. We learned that our investor needed a team to begin the early stage development planning, so strung together a more qualified team of our contacts to help us put the proposal together, and went to meet with the investor.

It was at this point where things started to get complicated. As soon as we started involving more people, especially since we couldn’t afford to pay big consulting fees, questions started to arise about how to share benefits.

We discussed a variety of options, and ended up figuring out something that we thought would work, and desperately wanted to avoid involving lawyers.

Are there good legal resources out there that can help us avoid lawyers?

When does a startup need to have a lawyer to help with ongoing contractual matters with clients?

Post from: Irvine Business

My latest discovery: there’s an actual Christmas tree farm in Irvine, and you can choose your tree starting this Saturday, Nov. 21st at Peltzer Pines.

Here’s how it works:

Tree prices are determined by the size, height & quality. On each tree you will find a price tag. Once you select the desired tree, open the tag and remove the lower half & take it to the office…The payment will hold your tree until you pick it up or until Dec. 22nd. Once you decide to pickup your tree our employees wearing red caps will cut your tree for you. We have saws & twine and the employee who cut your tree will also tie it on your vehicle.

You have your choice of two types of trees: Monterey Pines and Leyland Cypresses.

Peltzer Pines’ Irvine farm is at the corner of Bake Parkway and Irvine Center Drive; it is open from 9 a.m. to dusk on weekends, and from 11:30 a.m. to dusk on weekdays.

There are also locations in Brea and Silverado Canyon.

Where do you buy your Christmas trees? How early do you buy every year? Any tips on where to find a lush tree that will remain fresh until Christmas? Please share!

Related Links:

Post from: Irvine Business

Seems that if Irvine-based Local.com isn’t fighting off rumors it’s being bought by Microsoft then it’s getting on some fancy list.

This time Local.com (NASDAQ: LOCM) has been named the third fastest growing local advertising company in North America. It was also ranked as the fifth fastest-growing public company in Orange County by the Orange County Business Journal. In September Nielsen labeled Local.com the 10th largest search engine in the United States.

On second thought, maybe Microsoft should think about buying Local.com. It’s really pushing hard against Google with Bing, maybe adding Local.com would help.

Related Links:

Post from: Irvine Business

Nick Haschka, co-founder of the 532 Development Group

Editor’s note: This is part of an ongoing series chronicling the triumphs, challenges, failures and questions facing one Orange County startup, the 532 Development Group, written by the founders themselves with as much openness as competition allows.  If you’re new to the series, start here and come back.

After picking our name (or in our case, our number), we were finally forced to pony up to the question we’d been contemplating, but avoiding a decision on for weeks.

• What is our business going to do?
• Who are we going to be?

We decided to start out by seeking the familiar - consulting. We first crafted our value proposition by identifying our most valuable and unique strength, the ability to translate back and forth between the languages of science and business. From this we decided to target technology businesses. We defined and prioritized, based on our own level of excitement, the 4 broad technology industries we had professional experience working in.

After putting up a Web site, probing our business networks, and attending some local networking events, we found a number of attractive leads and received a few proposal requests. Within 2 weeks, we landed two projects. Fortunately, one was in alternative energy, our #1 priority industry, while the other was in mobile software, our #2 priority industry.

Within 2 weeks of embarking on the two projects simultaneously, we found ourselves naturally focusing more on the project we were most excited about. To us, exploring solar opportunities in Arizona was much more exciting than figuring out how to enter the mobile payments market. As a result, the second project became tougher and tougher to manage. Despite successfully completing the mobile payments project, we decided to re-evaluate our target markets and cut out 3 industries to focus exclusively on alternative energy.

This decision to focus seemed obvious in hindsight, but we continue to confront similar decisions.

Questions:

Are there any good rules of thumb people use help decide whether something is too far outside of focus?

How do you balance the desire to explore the unfamiliar with the need to stay focused on your expertise?

Related Links:

Post from: Irvine Business

Pierrick Bouquet’s business pitch is simple: “We clean your car like pros with just a glass of H2O.”

He picked Newport Beach to base his business, Ecolo Green Car Wash, which launches officially today.

Ecolo comes to several business parks in Irvine throughout the week and workers can pay to have their car washed for $17 for a basic outside hand wash and $20 for both inside and outside, though larger vehicles may cost more. Hybrid cars get a $3 discount. The company also sells a line of cleaning products that come in spray bottles that, according to Bouquet, are made from the same kind of plastic as water bottles so they can be recycled as such. Bouquet also says the cleaning solution is environmentally safe and biodegradable.

So why a green car wash? Without a spray nozzle on the end, a standard garden hose might pass through 10 gallons of water each minute, so a 10 minute long car wash can spend 100 gallons of water. If you’re one of these people using a hose without a nozzle you should probably feel guilty about single-handedly destroying the Earth. A nozzle drastically improves water preservation, but not anywhere close to the eight ounces of water Bouquet promises to use for a wash.

Ecolo also sells a line of car, tire and fabric cleaning solutions so you can clean your car at home.

If you’re a visual person, here’s a video of Bouquet making a video pitch:

Click here to view the embedded video.

And a quick demo of Bouquet showing how it works:

Click here to view the embedded video.

We’ve got an Ecolo sample kit which includes two fresh towels and bottles of the car, fabric and tire solutions that I’ll be giving away randomly to a commenter on this post. Make sure you sign up to comment with a real email address so I can contact you if you win.

Related Links:

Post from: Irvine Business

UPDATE: Right after publishing this I got an update from the Irvine Spectrum. Apparently someone has already called to see if they can camp early. In addition to the giveaway there will be a DJ, face painter, balloon artist, games and refreshments as well as a 50 percent off sale on outerwear and anyone who opens or uses an Old Navy credit card gets 30 percent off any purchase. Figure that into your calculations below.

Old Navy at the Irvine Spectrum is celebrating its grand re-opening tomorrow, Saturday, at 9 a.m. with giveaways and prizes.

The first 200 customers in line get the chance to win one of three $500 shopping spree giveaways or two $200 giveaways. I did some math on my calculator that I realize afterward I could have done on my fingers to figure out that’s a 1 in 40 chance. Now, I know what your thinking, bring three friends and you’ve got  a 1 in 10 chance of winning a shopping spree. Now I failed algebra II not once but twice but I think that means there’s a 6 percent likelihood you’ll get a $500 shopping spree and a 4 percent likelihood you’ll win a $200. Well, split four ways that’s $125 per person or $50 per person. Then you have to calculate how many pairs of clothes that is to see if it’s worth it along with the cost of gas to get there.

But…there’s also the chance to win a pair of jeans or a t-shirt too, but the Irvine Spectrum didn’t say in the press release how many t-shirts they’d give away, so there’s no way to calculate your chances there. You also have to wonder, is it a cool t-shirt/pair of jeans?

Also, how early do you have to get there on a Saturday to be one of the first 200 in line? The store opens at 9 a.m.

I’m probably going to sleep in, but I’m sure to some early bird shoppers that 1 in 40 chance sounds pretty appealing.

Old Navy is located near Carousel Court and Dave & Buster’s at the Spectrum. For more information, call 949-727-1968.

Post from: Irvine Business

Walking around Roland DGA’s new Creative Center I couldn’t help but be surprised by how many products are created, or at least made more visually appealing, using printers and engravers.

Roland is a worldwide printing company with its North and South American marketing and sales headquarters in Irvine. The company doesn’t quite have the household presence of a Hewlett-Packard or an Epson because their products aren’t for your average household or daily user. Their machines are priced in the thousands to tens of thousands of dollars and geared more toward the creative professional. Roland printers, engravers and scanners might be found in the design studios of companies around the world.

The company recently announced their Irvine Creative Center where they display a variety of products made by Roland customers.

“I don’t know that [the Creative Center] would mean a lot to the general public, but to creative people who are looking for tools to explore their dreams, I’d say this is a neat place to give them a lot of ideas,” said Rick Scrimger, vice president and general manager at Roland DGA.

From etched rings to a giant replica flying machine hanging overhead, the variety of products made using printed and etched graphics is surprising. Roland officials said the company’s machines were used to help create the illusion of certain locations in Hollywood movies like Charlie Wilson’s War, Miami Vice and Public Enemies. Even the floors of the creative center are covered in different types of printed graphics that give the illusion of different surfaces, from wood to asphalt. There’s an Xbox 360 wrapped in a colorful dragon and tiger design and a Sierra Nevada beer tap station with labels made by Roland printers. There are drums, shirts, jerseys, walls, bottles, cereal boxes, rings, plates, purses, blinds, refrigerators, sinks, windows, paintings, puzzles, toys and more all made visually stunning using Roland machines. Even braille door signage can be made using engravers. Check out this slideshow of various things made with the help of Roland machines.

One of the more impressive pieces Roland had on display was this toy in the video below, made with the help of a Roland engraver. If you can’t hear the audio, it was created by an Italian toymaker who designed this on a computer and then he used a Roland machine to help cut the pieces:

Visitors to the creative center are welcome. Check out www.rolanddga.com for details.

Related Links:

Post from: Irvine Business

Now I’m not a Bath & Body Works kind of guy. I reach for the nearest towel, shampoo or soap and could care less about the brand, scent or color of whatever I’m using.

Still, spending $20 for $30 worth of stuff seems like a pretty good deal.

Coupon is available through CheapIrvine.com and it works online too. Coupon expires Nov. 22.

Post from: Irvine Business

A create-your-own jewelry workshop will be held next weekend at the create-your-own candle store in the Irvine Spectrum.

The workshop, called “Jewelry For The Soul,” runs from 10 a.m. to noon on Saturday, Nov. 14. Local jewelry designer Shari Cheves will be running the workshop. Participants will be able to make a unique bracelet from various stones similar to the one pictured above for $65. Organizers say space is limited and you can reserve one by calling at 949-753-7873.

I’m pretty curious about the create-your-own candle store myself. The store, called Pure Light, is located in the Irvine Spectrum Center next to the Nordstroms and the Giant Wheel. Apparently it has been open since June and inside you can make a candle from various fragrances, colors and shapes and then decorate it with different items. My favorite idea is that you can put a hidden note as a message in a bottle that I assume is revealed when the candle burns down.

I’ll follow up and see if I can’t get some photos of the shop. There’s another Pure Light shop in Laguna Canyon which was covered before.

If anyone has visited either of these stores, let us know in the comments what it’s like or what making your own candle is all about.

Post from: Irvine Business

For me, it’s a spot on the I-5 where it meets the 22 and the 57 freeways. If I’m on a call there I’ll almost always lose the call. It has been like that for at least two years.

I’m sure you have a place like that too.

As handset manufacturers pack more features into their phones the signal problem is still a big one and there are a lot of people looking for solutions. One of these is WiSpry, an Irvine-based company backed by nearly $50 million in investments ($21.5 million of which was raised between May to July of this year).

WiSpry is developing a technology that improves the way cell phones handle the radio frequency signals they receive.  WiSpry CEO Russ Garcia says the technology could improve battery life by up to 30 to 40 percent and  signal strength by up to two times.

“Until you have battery life that’s several days and service that’s as good as what you have on your land line then there’s always room for improvement,” said Garcia. “And our product goes straight to the core of that.”

The technical term for what they’re developing is a Tunable Impedance Matching Device. In plain terms, it helps optimize the way the mobile devices handle the signals they get. According to Garcia, their technology is being evaluated by the major cell phone  manufacturers and he expects to have revenue come 2010.

Post from: Irvine Business