Tracy Brown, CEO and founder of Evil Genius Designs, doesn’t profile as the standard entrepreneur type. After working at Anderson Consulting and as Director of Technology at American Eagle Outfitters building their ecommerce and running information security, the next step isn’t usually a startup. But I found out the real story at South By SouthWest (SXSW) when I met Tracy by her video game at the PepsiCo Stage.

Tracy was a semi-professional gamer on the side. When she helped a student who wanted to be a game designer, she ended up finding her dream Master’s Degree program at Carnegie Mellon, applying, and cashing out her career. During her years at school she worked both on an alternate reality game and on the Activision “Quantum of Solace” project. While finishing the program, she came up with the idea for “Get In Line Games,” which is the concept of entertainment while you’re waiting for a concert, event or movie to start. Her goal was to make the waiting experience “worth waiting for” and to harness attention during those times. Throw in brand connections and you get the Evil Genius part of the story.

Evil Genius’ 5 employees and extended team have created a platform that enables people with mobile devices to play a shared game around a common screen. If you have a phone, wifi-based iPod or Nintendo, it can be your game controller. Their first experiment, at the Penny Arcade Expo (PAX) conference had 7,000 people playing while waiting in line for two hours to get in, being exposed to brands and products, and thanking them afterwards for a fun game.

Skip forward to last summer and Evil Genius Designs applied with over 500 other companies to be part of the PepsiCo10 Competition. According to Pepsico, the company is partnering with up to 10 emerging technology start-ups, helping them execute pilot programs with PepsiCo brands. “We were looking for shovel-ready tech that we could partner with in four strategic areas: motion video, social media, mobile, and digital in-store,” said Bonin Bough, Global Head of Digital and Social Media for PepsiCo. “We wanted to find companies that changed the way we connect with our consumers.”

The 500 submissions were distilled down to 20, who all presented across the PepsiCo organization to brands including Pepsi-Cola, Frito-Lay, Tropicana, Quaker Oats and Gatorade, and to every area from package design to legal and marketing, letting the entire organization see all the tech possibilities. “As a way to add value to the companies participating, we brought in venture capitalists, mentors, and guides for these 10 companies and we exposed them to our agency partners as well,” said Bough.

The top 10 finalists were given a pilot to run with a brand. For Evil Genius, their task was to help people spend their waiting time while providing utility and monetizing that time with brand exposures – in other words – to entertain people around a brand experience. They created the Super Shopper video game experience, which I tried at SXSW. It is a very Microsoft Xbox 360 kinect-like game that takes place as a shopper “runs” down an aisle. By moving my body right and left – with full hand motion and leaning – I picked up products in the aisle by rolling my “cart” past them, avoiding spills and abandoned carts that slowed me down. (You can see my picture – but note the camera seems to have added a few pounds. Really. I came home from SXSW down 5.) I got extra points for grabbing SunChips, which was the featured product in this demo.

Then there was a challenge round – me versus the computer disgused as an evil shopper – and I almost won. I also found out by collecting items that there were a few products I didn’t know came from PepsiCo (Stacy’s Pita Chips, for example). So the game increases customer awareness, exposes customers to brands, and provides a fun experience. There were free SunChips for me to taste in the booth after my “workout.”

Brown said “For my company, participation in this PepsiCo 10 has raised awareness that large brand company sees value in our platform. In addition we think it is valuable to talk to brand managers in the company, and to Pepsi’s agency partners. I get to refine our offering with people in the industry and it puts more credibility behind our small startup. It also gives us a case study when we talk to other companies and investors.”

She hopes to take the company to the next level using this demo to get some new contracts and attract investment. Bough informed me that the PepsiCo 10 is launching in Europe soon. Are major consumer packaged goods companies like PepsiCo the next filters for digital innovation? Let us know what you think about sharing your product with a company in the comments below.

When Podio's Chairman Thomas Madsen-Mygdal told me at South By Southwest last week they were creating their own application store for their flexible software tool, I wasn't surprised. Then he clarified - he meant they were launching a real-life store in San Francisco yesterday that anyone can walk into, to get help creating a custom application that runs on the Podio platform.

You hear about fashion companies doing pop-up stores. There was even a PopTart pop-up store in midtown Manhattan recently. But a software store for a small Danish software company? And in San Francisco, where there are a huge number of programmers?

"The company is starting our US operations with a store," said Madsen-Mygdal, "and we’re launching our next version. We’ve run lots of workshops with customers, and we love meeting people who will use our products. This is a place where we can run seminars and have a location for people to walk in and ask questions."

What is Podio? "We used to be able to create simple Filemaker templates or macros in Excel, but we lost that somewhere when we started moving to the web. Podio brings back the ease of creating your own applications. It's a web-based platform where you can build your own applications and use the tools for what you need to do. Instead of 20 web applications, you have everything in one environment. it is our attempt to build the next generation of simple tools for your own needs. These tools exist within a social space, so everyone can collaborate. They're designed to scale from small teams to company intranets. Tools can be used within your company or across companies."

Podio will be free for the first 10 users in a space or project. There will be a flat fee per month plus a small fee per user after the initial 10, so small businesses can basically try this for free. Currently, all the apps in their market place are also free. But if someone creates an innovative module in the app store, they will get value as others improve it or as they are able to consult on it. Podio will highlight their best developers and feature them in seminars or workshops. And in the future, they'll have a way for developers to charge money for modules they create.

Madsen-Mygdal gave me an example of a woman who runs a magazine. She used the plaform to create a production flow, a database of freelancers, a task management app to delegate tasks and to stay organized. This non-technical user was able to create an application to run her entire company in less than 5 hours, and it fit her company's needs better than piecing together other tools. Users can create their own modules, or get them from Podio's (on-line) application store.

The real-life store has that Northern European design feeling, which Madsen-Mygdal assures me is due to "a few trips to Ikea and our team's do-it-yourself ethos." The pictures show a design that combines an Apple store-like asthetic with a hip cafe. "We flew in our team from Copenhagen, and yesterday, we did a hack day. Today we had 80 people come by for a lunchtime meetup who are Europeans living in the SF area. Anyone can walk in from the street and get help building their own app if they want it."

Creating a store is certainly one way to get attention for the launch of a new product. "Usually you do a party and have a band. We're doing that too. But this is more about becoming a part of the local community instead of just having one evening event. For now the store is open for a few weeks, and then we’ll evaluate whether we move to regular office space, or to keep our offices in the store and use the space for a place to do events and create community around our software."

What happens if the store concept takes off? "If we like the way it works out in SF as a prototype, we may open more stores in Copenhagen and potentially in other cities as well."

The store is at 224 6th Street near Howard Street in San Francisco. Would your small business be more likely to create a custom application if you could go talk to the developers in a store about how to customize it? Is this a good stunt or a potential future trend in software retail? Let us know what you think in the comments below.

Last year’s South By Southwest festival was a tipping point for location-based check-in services. I wrote about companies like Foursquare and Gowalla and the idea of "check-ins" in the article "Mobile Location, Location, Location at SXSW." This concept, then popular, has grown exponentially. Those companies have also been joined by the current leader in that space, Facebook Places. This year it was amazing to be at SXSW with a large early adopter crowd and be able to track friends and be aware of events via a mobile device in real time. But what about other, non "check-in" ideas?

Imagine a world where the apps on your mobile device knew not just where you were, but knew the context around your location—the weather, the time of day, the neighborhood, and more—and delivered customized information based on those factors. This year an even more potentially game-changing idea is the use of location awareness in any mobile application—providing a layer of information that's relevant in the context of your location, neighborhood, time of day, and more, at the time you use a tool.

At SXSW 2011 I spoke with the founders of SimpleGeo, a company providing this data. CEO Jay Adelson is most well known for co-founding Digg, Internet web studio Revision 3, and data center company Equinix. The company was the result of a brainstorm from the 2009 SXSW conference when co-founders Joe Stump and Matt Galligan thought about the idea of augmented reality games that could exist "on top" of the real world. Galligan told me he quickly figured out that games weren't his forte, but the location infrastructure required to create such a game would be valuable to a range of companies. In other words, he could build a database of place and location data that others could then innovate around.

Adelson says: "Application developers should be able to focus on creativity of their own products. Storage and scale is not what they should think about." Adds Galligan, who is chief strategy officer, "Four or five years ago, everyone was concerned about building social graphs [the connections between friends on networks]. Now it's just assumed that you can have someone log in via Twitter or Facebook and give you that information." SimpleGeo is working on a similar service for app developers now—so that location data about an area is assumed—and developers can just make what they need.

In fact, SimpleGeo is so passionate about the location data being available to all developers that their database of places is free to other developers. They’ll make money by charging for use, and by allowing others to store data about these places that are unique to the service they’re creating.

As an example, travel site Hipmunk uses the data from SimpleGeo as a local business information database. "We look up bars, restaurants, and nightclubs and then create our own "heat maps" based on SimpleGeo data and other data to determine where the items of interest in a city are located,” said Hipmunk co-founder and CEO Adam Goldstein. You can see this very clever filtering in its app (described in their blog) that helps searchers find the kind of hotel that also has the amenities and neighborhood atmosphere that makes them comfortable.

Adelson says: "The problem we're solving is, give us the coordinates of a device, we'll give you the data and make it relevant. We also want to provide some of this data free and unencumbered." SimpleGeo raised $10M in funding between seed money and Series A, and now has 24 employees. Its founders have an interesting take on a marketing strategy; Galligan reports they’ve been marketing the company to consumers and techies, rather than as an "infrastructure" play. They're working on a "Powered by SimpleGeo” effort to generate credibility for their service as well as the apps that work with them.

For small businesses just starting up, I think this trend in location awareness is important as it emphasizes the need to have a great online presence in places like Google Local and similar sites, so that companies like SimpleGeo will find you and include you in their database. Does the idea of a location database that leads customers to your business appeal to you? Do you have app ideas that need location? Let us know in the comments below.

Greetings from Austin, Texas. I’m at the annual South By SouthWest (SXSW) Interactive festival. I’m writing a follow up story about the Small Business Web which I described last March after SXSW 2010 as “a group of software companies whose programs are connected to each other via a set of communication channels. These APIs let them pass data from one program to another – giving small business solutions the capabilities of an integrated enterprise suite of applications at a small business price.”

The “why should I care” part for your growing company is that you can list several types of software your business needs, add the services online, and connect them like building blocks so your invoicing, email marketing, and customer relationship management (CRM) system, for instance, are all connected. And you don’t need tech support to make it happen. Many of these companies also support Google’s Apps Marketplace, allowing a company to integrate tools via the sign-in they already use to get email.

The Small Business Web has grown from my reported 70 companies last year to 168 this year, according to co-leader Sunir Shah, "Chief Handshaker" of online invoicing service Freshbooks. Not all the companies integrate with all other companies, since some integrations don’t make business sense. But all signed the manifesto indicating that they believe, among other things, that “small businesses should have access to the same tools and technology that big companies have.”

And there are competing companies involved, according to Michelle Riggen-Ransom, Director of Communications for small business CRM provider BatchBlue. “We have email providers MailChimp, Icontact and Constant Contact as well as other competing CRM providers.” The tools range from mail and CRM to customer support and project management, with new categories being constantly added.

Shah added “If one cloud-based service succeeds, it benefits everyone in our industry. An increasing market helps all of us. ” That market is only beginning its growth. According to an IDC Research report quoted* in the Wall Street Journal, “only about 7% of small-business owners were using cloud services, but that number is expected to grow to more than 10% by mid-2011.” (UPDATE: Direct link to the research, behind a pay wall.)

The fact that the products integrate is really important to Shah. “At Freshbooks, we’re 3 times more likely to have a customer go from a free trial to paying for our service if they use any of the integrations with other Small Business Web partners.”

The Small Business Web effort got a boost recently when the Small Business Web received support from American Express OPEN. “OPEN is about small business doing more business,” said Eric Jepsky, Vice President of Business Development. “Small businesses really have a strong need for tech companies focused on them. We appreciate their focus on making small business’ lives easier through interoperability.”

OPEN has it’s own set of Small Business web apps, but these apps currently do not integrate through open API interfaces like those used by the companies in the Small Business Web group. Jepsky said such interfaces are “TBD, but the Small Business Web is an innovative, best of breed group that we wanted to be a part of.” This group will likely continue to grow with the support of OPEN and other companies.

Does your small business need some of the tools provided by the almost 170 companies in the Small Business Web? Are you working with them? Let us know your story in the comments.

(*IDC’s report is behind a pay-wall and they were not reachable for comment. UPDATED above.)

Normally I don’t focus on male- or female-specific entrepreneurial challenges, but having received two books by women entrepreneurs in the last few weeks, I thought it was a good time to review this topic.

Entrepreneur Susan T. Spencer grew her first business in the late 1960’s when her self-designed tennis dress caught on in popularity. A divorcee with kids to support, she took on a partner who drove her business into the ground – by selling too much!

“Cash flow and partnerships are key lessons I learned early. Don’t ever go into a 50-50 partnership if you don’t have a great lawyer and a clear understanding of where the business is going. In fact, you should probably never have 50-50 ownership. Come up with a list of responsibilities each is willing to take. If 99% are on one person’s side, and the rest are on the other side – that’s a problem with that partner – don’t do the deal.” Spencer’s partner, a man, refused to listen to her and the company was unable to supply the product to stores.

On cash flow, Spencer said “One of the most important things about cash flow, and I was in business for 4 years before I figured this out, is to know the terms companies are setting, what they’re going to pay you, and when. I didn’t know at the time that department stores paid net 90 days, and that sunk me.” Spencer’s book, Briefcase Essentials has a number of tips that women can use to leverage their talents and abilities to help them grow their own businesses or careers. Her site also has a link to some of her useful YouTube videos.

Spencer went on to a career as the first Woman General Manager of an NFL team, the Philadelphia Eagles (admitting that her dad owned the team and let her work up through the ranks.) From there, she bought and built up companies in the meat industry and the trucking industry, both stereotypically male fields.

Spencer told me “I think women have a need to understand that when they are in a business, they need to grow it, not baby-sit it. If you don’t grow, you don’t have power. When you grow, when you add employees and grow your bottom line, you get opportunity to do what you do well and let others do their work.”

Carol Roth, business strategist and author of the The Entrepreneur Equation, isn’t a fan of having women-only networking (or women-only business books.) “Women shouldn’t have a league of their own,” said Roth. “What we’re up against is an old boys network in a new digital age. Look at the Web 2.0 company boards, and there are no women, even though it is widely quoted that more women than men participate in social media. The concept of women’s groups can be damaging for your career as it singles out women as a “special needs” group. It’s like sitting at the kids’ table during holiday dinner. Instead of joining the women’s group, don’t be afraid to grab your seat at the men’s table, even if you are the only women. You need to establish those relationships if you want to play in the same league.”

Having played in the real big leagues, Spencer would definitely agree with that last point. “Do not try to be a man. It’s not effective and it wastes your talent,” Spencer told me. “If you do homework and you’re disciplined and detailed, you’ll succeed with male suppliers and customers. When you’re the expert, men will come to you for information and will rely on you for it.”

Roth’s book drops on March 22nd, and Spencer’s book was supposed to be on sale next week (but I see it listed as available via several online book sites.)

What do you think would be helpful to women starting businesses? Let us know in the comments.

A note: I’m doing some interesting stuff this week over on Twitter and increasing my interactions on my Facebook Fan Page – are you following @HowardGR?