Published on April 7, 2008
in Events.
So my last attempt at Open Coffee Around My Schedule was pretty successful. At the Emory event I had four people come out and at the Perimeter event I had a whopping 10-12 people there (I lost count). Given that I only gave folks a few days notice before the events, I’d say that was awesome. Also, given that a lot of folks initially came to meet up with me, it seemed like there was a lot of good discussion between folks that I wasn’t a part of. Which is perfect! The goal here is not, necessarily, to talk to me but to meet folks who are coming to hang out. I will say I didn’t get a lick of work done for the whole two hours at Emory or three hours at Perimeter.
So I’m announcing two more Open Coffee’s with a little more notice this time. The location on the first is thanks to Rob Kischuk - so all praise/blame should go to him. Here they are:
- April 16, 2008 - 2pm to 5pm - Cafe Intermezzo at 1845 Peachtree Road, Atlanta, GA 30309
- April 17, 2008 - 2pm to 5pm - Panera Bread at 1545 North Decatur Road, Atlanta, GA 30307 (by Emory)
Cafe Intermezzo has free Wi-Fi which is why it made the cut. If you’ve got a favorite place that offers free Wi-Fi at which you want to do an Open Coffee, leave a comment and I’ll try to work it into the schedule. If you’re going to show up for either one of these, also leave a comment. Not required but then I know to look out for you.
I still don’t have a pretty looking site up yet (it’s coming) but I’ve decided to go ahead and open up registration for Startup Riot. I still have slots available for startups to pitch although those are going pretty quickly. This is going to be a fun event and I am way looking forward to this. If you have questions, post in the comments or find me during the two Open Coffee events I’m doing this week (I should really call them Open Coffee-like events).
Published on March 31, 2008
in Events.
I’ve been waiting for someone to start up an Open Coffee in Atlanta. What that really means is I want to go to an Open Coffee and not have to organize it. Since that hasn’t happened, I’m going to organize Open Coffee events around my schedule and announce them here. If you want to come, great. If you don’t, great. If you want to just come and hang out, great. If you want to come and pick my brain, great. If no one shows up, I’ll just be forced to get work done - which is great. Anyways, here are my two Open Coffee sessions this week:
- April 1, 2008 - 2pm to 4pm (at least) - Panera Bread at 1545 North Decatur Road, Atlanta, GA 30307 (by Emory)
- April 3, 2008 - 2pm to 5pm - Panera Bread at 4531 Olde Perimeter Way, Atlanta, GA 30346 (by Perimeter Mall)
Why Panera Bread? Well, the free Wi-Fi of course! I’ll be there with my silver Dell laptop. In case you don’t know what I look like, you can find me on LinkedIn or Facebook (I don’t do promiscuous linking so don’t send me a request unless I know you). If you are planning on showing up, leave a comment so I know to look for you.
So someone posted a request on my Skribit widget for an update on Startup Riot. So here we go.
A new site is in development (what, you don’t like my manual HTML hacked site?) and should go up in the next day or two. Along with that you’ll see all the details for the event which I’m pre-announcing here. Namely, it is going to be held on Monday May 19, 2008 from 9am until 5pm at Twelve Hotel in Atlantic Station. The goal is to get 45 startups on stage to present their three minute pitch on themselves. Already half of those slots are taken by companies who have pre-registered to pitch for the event. If you want to pitch, better act fast and sign up quickly. Companies may be from anywhere (not just Atlanta), may be in any industry (not just technology), and may be at any funding stage (or may not even be raising money). The audience will be made up of job seekers (potential co-founders, fresh grads, and others), potential clients (large companies and non-profits), and investors (angel investors and venture capitalists).
There are a couple of sponsors who have already agreed to support this event. I’m still looking for a few more to help pay for the overhead of doing this. After I secure those final sponsors, the event will be closed off to new sponsors or attendance by service providers. I’m going to manually approve each and every attendee to the event. Yes, it’ll be tedious but I’m willing to do that to ensure a high quality mix of attendees. Each group of attendees will have a controlled number of slots available so that there is a good mix of folks for the event. And yes, I will turn away folks based solely on my judgment as to their suitability for this event.
Finally, I’ve mentioned this to a few people but haven’t made a public announcement. We are going to have a keynote speaker at the start of the day’s events. That keynote speaker is now fully confirmed and will be Drew Curtis of Fark.com. Although a lot of people know Drew as the guy that has caused a lot of commotion, he’s also a serial entrepreneur. His talk will likely be an interesting and funny take on doing a startup. If you don’t know of Drew or Fark.com, just go read some stuff about him. Oh yeah, Drew also owns Fark TV which is hosted by SuperDeluxe.com which is a part of TBS.
I’m still working out the fees for registration but don’t worry - they’ll be far more reasonable than other events that supposedly cater to startups. There will be an option to pre-pay for a box lunch at the event as well. There are plenty of local restaurants that you can walk to if you want to do that instead. My goal is to have as few sponsors for this event as possible and one way to do that is to have each of you pay for your own lunch.
This is going to be a fun event and I’m definitely looking forward to seeing all the startups come out and do their three minute pitches. You can help by spreading the word about this event. The more high quality people that show up to the event means a better event for everyone.
This blog has been eerily quiet since I announced and started ramping up for Startup Riot. Everyone seems to be very enthusiastic about the event and I’m hurriedly seeing venues and trying to figure out a cost effective way of doing this. As I mentioned before this is going to be an event focused on getting pitches from startups (Atlanta or not) in 3 minute chunks. Of the initial projection of 45 slots, I’ve already got about half of them filled with companies who have pre-registered. I may expand this number based on demand (which will then require reconfiguring either the schedule or the venue or both) but the initial 45 companies have the best shot of pitching at the event.
I’ve also started reaching out to investors (both angels and venture capitalists) to introduce the event. Everyone so far seems interested in attending (even without a firm date set). My next round of introductory invites is going to go out to large local corporations and non-profits. The large corporations are a good chance to land paying customers (or potential acquirers!). My hope is that startups at the event will see non-profits as a way to get name recognized pilot customers who can provide valuable feedback while non-profits get to use bleeding edge technology for free/cheap. If you view non-profit folks in that capacity I think it’ll be a win/win.
So what do I need from you? A few things. I’ve already got a handful of people who have volunteered their time and help for this event. I need more of those people - people who volunteer to work the registration table, help with presentations, move people from area to area, etc. Also, if you have contacts with venture capitalists, angel investors, large companies, or non-profits who you think would come to this event, contact me and I’ll introduce the event to them with your help. This will help get them to register for the event once details are set.
So how do you contact me? Well, you can email me, DM me on twitter, or send a message through LinkedIn.