Sprouter & [StartUp Digest] have partnered up to bring you a list of the best events to attend and founders to meet in Austin this weekend.

Get your daily fix at sprouter.com/startupdigest

Keep an eye open for a chance to meet Chris and Brendan from Startup Digest, and of course the Sprouter team.

Chris McCann, Brendan McManus, Sarah Prevette & Erin Bury

To connect with other startup founders join the conversation on sprouter.com

To get the best startup events in your local area emailed to you every week sign up at thestartupdigest.com

Last year Team Sprouter attended the South by Southwest Interactive conference in Austin, Texas. The conference featured five days of presentations from the brightest minds in emerging technology, networking events hosted by industry leaders, and special programs showcasing the best new websites and startup ideas the community has to offer. We met entrepreneurs and web startups from around the world, and saw keynotes from respected CEOs like Zappos’ Tony Hsieh.

This year, we’re doing it all again! Sprouter Founder/CEO Sarah Prevette and Community Manager Erin Bury will be attending SXSW Interactive, which is held from March 12th-16th. We’ll be attending as many sessions as we can, and Sarah is on a panel discussing The Future of Community Management with other community experts including Thoora’s Saul Colt. We’ll be interviewing up-and-coming entrepreneurs about their startups, and recording podcasts with some tech industry stars. And watch out for our special Sprouter/Startup Digest that will highlight some of the key events and individuals in Austin this weekend.

Founder/CEO Sarah Prevette & Community Manager Erin Bury

If you’re attending SXSW, we want to meet you! Let us know, either by replying to this e-mail or @ replying us on Sprouter (@Sarah and @Erin). We’d love to say hello in person, interview you about your company, and of course give you some Sprouter swag. Also we hope you’ll attend Sarah’s panel, which takes place on Monday, March 16th from 3:30pm to 4:30pm in room 19B.

We hope to see some of you in Austin, but If you aren’t attending SXSW you can follow the conversation on Sprouter on the #SXSW2010 event page. Also stay tuned to our blog, Flickr page and YouTube channel – we’ll be posting a variety of content in the weeks to come!

Cheers,

The Sprouter Team

Each week Sprouter Weekly will include:

• Founder Profile – We’ll profile an up-and-coming entrepreneur, a seasoned startup founder, or a big name in small business. Find out how they got started, their challenges along the way, and their advice for you as an entrepreneurs

• Hot Startups of the Week – If they’ve launched recently, raised a round of funding, or sold recently to Google, we’ll be featuring them in our hot startups section. Find out about who the hottest new companies are and what makes them unique.

• Upcoming Events – There are so many startup events taking place around the world – we curate five of the best each week, whether conferences, camps, networking events, or an excuse to commiserate with other entrepreneurs over a drink.

• What We’re Reading – We’re constantly reading great entrepreneurship-focused articles from blogs and news outlets around the web. Here we share our top picks of the week, both community and Sprouter staff picks.

• Featured Members – The Sprouter community is full of innovative entrepreneurs – here we highlight two individuals who are sharing great content and actively connecting with other entrepreneurs around the world.

• Founder’s Note – Sprouter’s Founder/CEO Sarah Prevette has her share of startup successes and challenges to talk about. Each week she’ll leave you with one of the lessons she’s learned along the way as a serial entrepreneur.

If you’re a Sprouter member you’re automatically subscribed to the weekly newsletter, and the first edition should be in your inbox now. If you’re not a Sprouter member you can subscribe on the online sign-up page http://sprouter.com/weekly, and you can check out this week’s edition of the newsletter online.

We hope you like the new format, and we hope you’ll pass it along to fellow entrepreneurs, startups and small business owners. If you have any content suggestions or comments on the new design please get in touch at erin@sprouter.com.

Serial entrepreneur Dan Martell

Dan Martell never really set out to become an entrepreneur. Instead, he was more concerned with building things. The New Brunswick native started learning how to program when he was in college, and once he knew how to code for the web, he realized he could build anything he wanted. “To me, it’s never been about ‘entrepreneurship’ really – I just like to build things that solve my problems,” he says. And build things he did – including his startup Spheric Technologies which he sold in 2008.

Fast-forward to his days as an online marketing guru. Because he was friends with so many small business owners, he would often get questions about setting up blogs, or Google ads, and all of the other social media tools that were starting to become mainstream. All of these questions led Dan to co-found another company, Flowtown, which is focused on providing web-based tools that allow small businesses to measure their online marketing efforts. “Flowtown turns e-mail addresses into social profiles, allowing you to heighten engagement and retention with existing customers and contacts,” Dan says.

Now based in San Francisco Dan is once again dealing with the daily trials and tribulations of running a startup. He says his team, including co-founder Ethan Bloch, has encountered many challenges from idea to reality. From building a product people would pay for, to hiring A+ team members (Dan says he refuses to compromise on hiring rock-star staff). And even though he’s a marketing guy, it’s still a daily battle to get eyeballs on their product. “We can never have enough traffic to our site,” he says.

Dan also supports young startups who are building things he’s excited about – most recently he invested in Plancast along with other prominent Angels, among them Dave McClure. So what’s his advice to young entrepreneurs trying to get an idea off the ground? Focus on the customers. “Everyone is talking about product market fit, customer development and lean startups lately,” he says. “My thoughts are that you need to be extremely customer focused and watch how they use your product – then ask them ‘why’?” He suggests getting out of the office and learning what problems your customers are having, and solving them. And he quickly identifies three qualities he thinks every entrepreneur should have: be a risk-taker, have the ability to sell, and be relentless.

So what’s next for this serial entrepreneur and investor? Well, his number one priority is focusing on the product. “We think there’s a huge opportunity to leverage the social data and social graphs to help small businesses increase revenues,” he says. And while he admits that he has some ideas on how to do that, a lot remains unknown. But, Dan believes in the power of his audience, and the power of other entrepreneurs. “We’re confident our customers will tell as as we talk to them daily.”

We love seeing the relationships that Sprouter members are forming with each other, which is why we’re launching a new blog series called Sprouter Success Stories. We’ll be showcasing how Sprouter members have connected with each other, how they’ve developed a relationship, and how it has helped their businesses. Read on for our first feature, about members Rachel Young and Jeff Waldman.

Sprouter member Jeff Waldman

You know when you have one of those “wow, we have that in common” moments? Sprouter members Rachel Young (@ruyoung) and Jeff Waldman (@fusionpoint) had one recently on Sprouter – the entrepreneurs, who both live in Toronto, Ontario, realized that they had both lived in Vancouver, British Columbia before moving east. They originally started talking on Sprouter because Jeff had responded to a post from Rachel inquiring about spaces to set up a co-working space in Toronto – he liked the idea and said he’d like to stay connected. Rachel was an early adopter on the recently-launched site and was looking to follow entrepreneurs who were providing valuable content - she says Jeff was a natural choice because of his relevant posts and interest in co-working spaces. They began writing back and forth to each other on Sprouter, and Rachel says it was similar goals that gave them so much in common. “Knowing that he was basically in the same place in his business as I was in mine was what I found to be the base layer, and then we built on that,” she says.

They kept in touch on Sprouter over the next while, and Rachel eventually secured a space for her recently-launched coworking space, Camaraderie. Jeff owns FusionPoint, a brand design firm, and works out of his home office. He comes downtown 1-2 times per week, but finds that it isn’t easy to have a phone conversation or face-to-face meeting in a Starbucks. “What I needed was a place that is close to the downtown core, was professional looking, quiet, had rooms available for confidential calls/meetings, WiFi access and a network of like business people that I could potentially collaborate with,” Jeff says. He met Rachel for the first time face-to-face at the Camaraderie space, and Rachel said their first meeting felt like they had been friends for years. Jeff now works there on the days he’s downtown. “Having a space for him to work when he has other appointments downtown or hold meetings in our space has been a benefit to both of us,” Rachel says. “I can offer him the workspace and he interacts comfortably with other people and helps to spread the word. And in exchange, as I learn more about his business I hope to be able to offer him introductions to some of my network, and vice versa.”

They say they share many of the same traits – a great sense of humour; a sense of purpose; a natural inclination to help people and be a resource for others; and a similar drive and passion for their businesses. They’re now friends as well as soundboards for idea generation – Jeff says Rachel has been extremely receptive to his feedback and ideas.

Rachel and Jeff have some advice for Sprouter members looking to make connections. Jeff says to keep an open mind when meeting other members, and give each one a chance to show how they can help. Rachel recommends looking for connections with a purpose, and unfollowing if someone isn’t providing the value that you need. “As an entrepreneur, time is precious since we are the president, sales rep, and janitor all in one, so there is no time to worry about hurting someone’s feelings if you unfollow.” Jeff says members should always ask themselves how they can help other entrepreneurs on the site. “Engage in reciprocity. Give first then take, and if we all do this then the Sprouter community will be an unbelievably strong one.”

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Are you a Sprouter member who has a Success Story to share? E-mail the details to erin@sprouter.com for your chance to be featured on our blog.

See below for this week’s edition. It highlights Sprouter members, news, links from around web, and events around the world – all focused on entrepreneurship. If you’re not a member of Sprouter you can subscribe here. Check out the newsletter online here for all links.

Sprout Up is a free monthly event for forward-thinking Toronto area entrepreneurs to gather and mind-meld. A great chance for startups around the city to get friendly, discuss current trends, and network in a casual, open, and focused setting. Attendees will walk away with new insights, new friends and actionable ideas for their businesses.

Join us on March 24th for the next Sprout Up! We have a special guest flying in from Vancouver for the event – guest speaker Ryan Holmes, founder and CEO of professional Twitter client Hootsuite. Ryan will be talking about his journey as a serial entrepreneur (from founder of a paintball field to tech startup CEO). You’ll also hear from new local startups about their businesses.

Event details:
Date: Wednesday, March 24th, 2010
Time: 6pm-9pm
Place: The Pilot, 22 Cumberland St, Yorkville

Guest Speaker:
Ryan Holmes, HootSuite
*Connect with Ryan on Sprouter before the event

Participating startups:

SmartBride, TweetAgora, TBA.

Make sure you RSVP to get your connection nametag at the event. You can RSVP, follow conversations about the event and connect with attendees beforehand by following the #SproutUpTO event page on Sprouter. You can also RSVP on the Meetup page. For more information contact Erin at erin[at]sprouter.com.

Join us & be a part of our Sprout Up! It’s going to be a fabulous night of invaluable insights, new & old friends, & of course your lovely hosts from Sprouter (www.sprouter.com).

More about guest speaker Ryan Holmes

Ryan Holmes is the CEO of HootSuite Media, Inc. and also co-founded Invoke Media in 2000. Ryan’s experience combines diverse management skills with solid industry and technical knowledge in addition to academic knowledge through the University of Victoria School of Business and Okanagan College plus hands-on entrepreneurial experience through several start-up ventures including a restaurant chain, a tourist adventure business, and an e-commerce store with 3m+/year revenues. Holmes frequently appears in media interviews, speaks at conferences and participates in industry panels about the future of the social web.

More about Hootsuite

HootSuite helps organizations use the social web to launch marketing campaigns, identify and grow audience, and distribute targeted messages across multiple channels. Using HootSuite’s unique social media dashboard, teams can collaboratively schedule updates to Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, Wordpress and other social networks via web, desktop or mobile platforms plus track campaign results and industry trends to rapidly adjust tactics.

Launched in Dec. 2008 by Invoke Media, HootSuite’s rapidly growing user base includes governments, artists and organizations like The White House, Martha Stewart Media, SXSW and Zappos. Accolades include awards from Mashable’s Open Web, Canadian New Media, and Shorty Awards.

We’re excited to announce that the Starred Posts feature is now live on Sprouter. This feature allows you to save any posts you find relevant for future reference. Simply click on the star next to a single post, and then find your saved posts at any time by visiting your Starred section on your profile page. So whatever posts you find interesting on Sprouter – whether a quote, words of encouragement, or a great link – you can keep them all in a single place.

You can also find out what other people find interesting by visiting their profile page and looking at their Starred Posts tab.

See below for the steps on how to star a post and where to find your Starred Posts on your profile page.

Step one – hover your cursor over the post you’d like to star:

Step two – click the star to save that post (you know it’s saved if the star is filled in):

Step three – see your starred posts at any time by clicking on the Starred tab in the sidebar:

We’re excited about this new feature, and appreciate your feedback as it helps to develop the service based on members’ needs. Provide your feedback on the Starred Posts feature on our Get Satisfaction page or connect with any one of us on our Sprouter profiles below.

We look forward to hearing from you,

The Sprouter Team

Sprouter.com/Sarah

Sprouter.com/Erin

Sprouter.com/Grant

Sprouter.com/Vince

See below for this week’s edition. It highlights Sprouter members, news, links from around web, and events around the world – all focused on entrepreneurship. If you’re not a member of Sprouter you can subscribe here. Check out the newsletter online here for all links.