I’ve Moved

I’ve finally gotten at least the blog portion together at my new home, Webwallflower.com

I’m not sure how best to move readers over there, how to get SEO up, how to redirect links around the web, etc.  If anyone has any ideas, PLEASE let me know.

But if you came here looking for my weekly tech event updates, startup advice, event advice, or entrepreneurial stories, do please head over to http://webwallflower.com and check out the Upcoming Events and Blog sections there.

The rest of the site is still under repair, so bare with me. 

Thanks Everyone!

My Favorite Events 11/23 – 11/27

So it is Thanksgiving Week.  My folks are in town, so I won’t actually be going out a lot.  And a lot of people’s folks are in town, or they are out of town, and so the event scene is a bit quite.  That said, here are some things you may want to peak into, if you are around. 

Monday, Nov 23rd
Sorry, Im late on this one.  :\  Its the holidays, cut me some slack.  I’ll try to get next week’s out early, since it is already CRAZY busy!!!
But on that note, have you signed up for Sf MusicTech Summit yet??

Tuesday, Nov 24th

SF NewMedia DrinkUp
6:00 – 9:30pm
Bubble Lounge (714 Montgomery)
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=170059131234&index=1

Wednesday, Nov 25th
Well I couldn’t find any fun tech events tonight, but this looks fun:

In the Spirit of Giving
9:00pm – 2:00am
The Atmosphere
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=220243429672&index=1
Bring a can of food, get a can of Heineken, and enjoy some great Bay Area DJs!

Thursday, Nov 26th

Turkey Open House
1pm – 1am
MIX Manor (2150 Hyde St. #7)
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=185456477043&index=1
(Orphaned?  Stop by and say hi!!)

 

Friday, Nov 27th

Union Square Tree Lighting Ceremony
6pm
Well duh, Union Square
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=182738692303&index=1
(I’ll be here with my parents, if you are interested in meeting them and meeting up. )

Finding an Entrepreneurial Valentine

(Please note, this was written for V-Day LAST year on an old blog.  But I am trying to collect all my writings in one place.  You can see the original and comments here.)

I’ve talked about how to get and prepare for your first Investor Meeting. With Valentine’s Day coming up, I figured some tips on getting and preparing for a first romantic date would be more helpful for the season. (This post will be very hetero-normative, and aimed primarily at geeky/start-up men. Here are some neat articles for those this will annoy, like it normally would me.)

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Through my attendance at SF Beta, I’ve come to notice that there are a lot of single, intelligent, and interested tech boys out there, as well as women who are interested in finding them (yes men, they do exist). Yet somehow, the meeting happens, and its all down hill from there…

So for the start-up men out there that I have come to know and love, here is some advice for chatting up that potential Valentine:

THE APPROACH:

1. Approach. Before working on how to approach, you must first start the approach. If you don’t have the confidence to come to me, I’m not going to waste my time going to you. Yes, I noticed you staring at me from the door; I’m just choosing to ignore you till you get some balls.
2. Have confidence, not ego. Approach with a smile, head held high, and a willing hand shake. But do not approach with all of your successes and greatness on your lips.

THE CONVERSATION:

1. Have a conversation ready. Do not come up to me, introduce yourself, and then expect me to fall head over heels that instant. Be ready to talk and not stand with an awkward grin.
2. A conversation takes two. Do not come up to me and leap into your newest start-up idea, a great technology you developed, or the tech gossip of the minute. If my responses are fewer than 4 words, I either don’t care or you aren’t letting me speak. I might as well just read your blog and leave you talking to the wall.
3. Have a question ready. This falls in line with #1 and 2. (“How are you?” doesn’t count). We have Facebook now; do some stalking, and at least pretend you have an interest in my life and want to engage in more than physical intercourse with me.
4. Don’t push too hard. Make me want more. If you hang around me for more than 20 minutes at a mixer, our conversation better be damned good. Otherwise, end it BEFORE it winds down and gets dull. “Oh, I’m sorry. My friend just got here. Let’s catch up later (hand me your card).” If, up until this point, things were going well, I will get back to you.
5. A Card is not a Call To Action. I take back the “(hand me your card)”, above. Think back to design school: have a Call to Action. As you are leaving, let me know “It’s been great talking to you. Do you have a card? I’d love to catch up more later, ideally somewhere quieter.” If she says no, give her yours, but make it clear you are honestly interested in talking. On the same note, if I just hand you my card, thank you, and walk away, it does not always mean I am interested. Don’t give up, but don’t get your hopes too high.

FOLLOW-UP

1. Email first. Some girls will disagree with me here, but I hate when a guy calls me out of the blue. I may not remember who you are, where I know you, or why you are calling; and your phone call just makes it uncomfortable. I prefer getting an email or gchat first, and then taking it to the phone.
2. A date is NOT a business meeting. Don’t trick me; be clear so I know what I am getting into. I HATE when men ask if we can get dinner to discuss business. Occasionally, people DO want to meet with me to talk business (surprise, surprise). It’s one thing to say “I’d like to take you out to dinner. I’m interested in learning more about what you do.” – That’s clearly a pick-up, thank you. It’s another to say “I’d love to chat with you about a business venture I have. Free for dinner next week?” – Ambiguity sucks.
3. Dinner is a date. Lunch is a meeting*. Weekends are always dates. This is good to know whenever you are asking to take a woman out. Be honest about what you want and pick an appropriate time. (*If you have made it clear this is NOT a meeting, than know that Lunch is casual)
4. Don’t get let down. You will get rejected, politely turned down, snubbed, ignored, etc. But if you stay positive, hopeful, and strong while you are single, you will get dates as well. The worst thing is the smell of desperation, so just relax and have a good time.

Getting The First Investor Meeting

(Another old post – trying to get all my writings in one place.)

So we are thinking of raising a round of angel investment in the next few months. While we’ve been reading up on Cap Tables, Executive Summaries, Slide Decks, and things needed for official suit and tie meetings, we aren’t sure how to get that first cup of coffee with potential investors. Here’s some great advice our adviser told me:

You Are The Star:

Sponsoring an Event – Lesson 1

I am often surprised at just how rarely I am asked “When should we sponsor an event? Why? and How?”  These all seem like pretty pertinent questions to me, especially when you’re considering investing anywhere from $1,000 – $50,000 at an event.  With advertising, social media, and even customer engagement getting their ROI measured under a microscope, shouldn’t these issues at least be addressed?

And I’ll be blunt.  By not asking them, you are setting yourself up to lose money with almost any sponsorship or event support you do.  Hell, you should be asking them even as an attendee: “When should I attend an event?  Why?  How?” (I do address this somewhat in my post “4 Reasons to Pay to Network“)  You need to know how to best prepare, what to invest, and what type of response to expect from attendees (scrutiny, curiosity, a level 1 understanding of your company, or a level 10? etc.)

So despite not being asked these questions enough by sponsors, I’ve decided to answer them nevertheless:

My Favorite Events for 11/16 – 11/22

So I’m a bit biased this week, as I am one of the hosts of Tuesday’s SF MusicTech Mixer – I hope you can swing down to Roe and check it out.  Otherwise, it is a CRAZY busy week – here are my plans (and for once I actually plan to be at all of them).  Hope you can join me at one!

Monday 11/16

Today is the peak of the Leonid Meteor Shower, so screw any events going on tonight and head to the hills to see this!

Tuesday 11/17

SF MusicTech Mixer
6:00 – 9:00pm
Roe (651 Howard Street)
http://sfmtsmixer.eventbrite.com

Wednesday 11/18
(This is a day of 3 2 events I would like to attend.  This is my order of priority:)

SF NewTech
5:30 – 11:30
Mighty Bar (119 Utah St.)
http://sfnewtech.com

Social Media Club
6:00 – 8:00pm
Citizen Space
http://sfsvnov09.eventbrite.com

Thursday 11/19

Tech The Halls
7:00 – 9:00pm
Varnish
http://www.techthehalls.eventbrite.com

Friday 11/20

Startup Crawl
5:30 – 11:00pm
Various Locations
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=169729122953&index=1
Saturday/Sunday
(This totally depends where you are.  But I recommend both)

Startup Sandbox (hosted by Women 2.o)
Friday – Sunday; 6:00pm – 9:00pm; then all day Sat and Sun
Microsoft (835 Market Street (Westfield Center) Suite #700)
http://www.women2.org/startup-sandbox/
(postponed to Feb 5th – 7th)

Startup Weekend
Friday – Sunday; 6:00pm – 9:00pm; then all day Sat and Sun
Hacker Dojo
http://bayarea.startupweekend.org/

November Bay Area Tech Events

TOP UPCOMING BAY AREA TECH EVENTS
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EVENT DISCOUNTS
SAN FRANCISCO EVENTS
BAY AREA EVENTS

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Best SF Tech Events 11/9 – 11/13

Just to clarify – these Monday lists are the events I will be going to – or would be if I were free.  I am guessing that they are the events that will have the best networking, food and drink, and/or fun at them.  I will generally put only 1-2 events each day, since this is a “best of” list, and I want to keep it reasonable. 

Monday 11/9

Lunch with Bing 2.0
12:00n – 2:00p
475 Brannan Street
http://upcoming.yahoo.com/event/4839835/CA/San-Francisco/Lunch-20-with-Bing/

Tuesday 11/10

Wednesday 11/11

NFT 2010 iPhone Launch Party
6:00p – 9:00p
Double Dutch, 3192 16th St
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=183074391840&index=1

Thursday 11/12

Jippidy Happy Hour
5:00p – 8:00p
Sloane 1525 Mission St.
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=171959440215&index=1

Alphabar: U is for Uptown
8:00p – 12:00m
200 Capp Street
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=203120341275&index=1

Friday 11/13

Berkeley CleanTech Conference: SmartGrid
12:00n – 7:00p
SRI Audiotorium, 333 Ravenswood Avenue, Menlo Park, CA
http://cleantech.stanford.edu

DogPatch Happy Hour
5:00p – 8:00p
Pier 38
(This sounds awesome, but I heard it through the grapevine, so do not have a URL)

Saturday 11/14
(I dont usually include the weekends, but I <3 the sound of this event!)

NextGen Conference
9:00a – 5:00p
Stanford University
http://www.nextgenconf.com/

Thanks to Myles – info on my Events List

So rumor has it that Myles sent out a note about the bi-weekly event mailing list I provide to startups, founders, and investors in the Bay Area.  If you are visiting this blog from that email, interested in joining the list, shoot me an email and I can sign you up (cassiph[at]gmail[dot]com).  Or head over to http://snapsummit.com and sign-up on the side bar.

Thanks!

Tech Events for 11/2 – 11/6

Sorry for the hiatus there guys – was sucked into FailCon last week.  I had a lot of personal pride, time, and money invested in that event, and I think it went pretty well.  You can see press and feedback from it on http://snapsummit.com/press.

But now I’m back in the game!  Here are the events I hope to hit up this week:

Monday

There isn’t a whole lot that leaps out at me today.  Christine Comaford is doing a conference call at 6pm on the 3 most common mistakes entrepreneurs, and there is a con on Enterprise Communications at Moscone Center.  But neither is quite my scene.

Tuesday (Election day!  Vote!)

Kiva Turns 4!
6:30 – 9:30pm
The Hub (2150 Allston Way)
http://kivaatthehub.eventbrite.com/

Wednesday

Nothing really jumped out at me for Wednesday night; I’ll probably play catch-up at work.  Do you know of anything?

Thursday

ChicMeetsGeek
6:30 – 9:30pm
Automattic Lounge, Pier 38
http://chicmeetsgeek.eventbrite.com

Friday

Well mainly, the Droid launches.  I’ll be keeping an eye on the reviews, as I am thinking of setting up a new cell phone plan and getting a new phone.  Once iPhone opens it service to other providers, it would be my first choice, but the Palm Pixi and the Droid are being observed..by Moi.
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Man, a slow week in the tech event world.  Please let me know if I missed something, or you think I need to be somewhere I’m not.