CATEGORIES
- NYC COVERAGE
- WEB STARTUPS
- WEB NEWS
- CONFERENCES
- WEB TECH JOBS
- VENTURE CAPITAL
- MICROSOFT
- INTERVIEWS
- ADVERTISING
- VIDEO
- ALL TOPICS
- ALL COMPANIES
CONTRIBUTORS
- ADRIAN CHAN
- ALICIA NAVARRO
- ALLEN STERN
- CORSIN CAMICHEL
- DRAMA 2.0
- DARREN HERMAN
- HANK WILLIAMS
- MARK DAVIS
- RICK TUROCZY
- SANFORD DICKERT
- SHANNON CLARK
Video from Meetup Discussion About the Future of the NY Tech Meetup
by Allen Stern on October 22nd, 2008
Last night a special meeting was held to begin discussions on how to shape the future of the NY Tech Meetup. Thanks to Scott and Dawn for organizing the evening and for the very tasty pizza and drinks. I will have a full recap of my thoughts and ideas for moving forward this week. I’ve received a bunch of emails asking about the video so I will post the video now. It’s 1 hour in length and covers the review and discussion of ideas. If you prefer text, all of the notes are listed on the Meetup site.
Thanks for capturing this Allen – it is almost just like being there!
You need to look at things at stages.
First stage you should concentrate on is how concepts are made more tangible.. Nickname this meetup…NY Tech Garage
A) Do a speed dating thing with seed investors.
B) Create a safe environment that makes sure concepts won’t be stolen. Advertise how people can do this. Do you need non-disclosure / non-compete agreements, etc. Maybe even provide these agreements.
C) Most entrepreneurs understand the three aspects to business sales, creative, and technical, but they generally don’t have a strong technical/engineering. To make their concepts come alive they need to partner with a technical or engineering individuals. Do a speed dating thing with engineers/tech individuals that would be looking to develop the next business idea. For a startup entrepreneur it can be a solo venture, so if you can help them develop a tech team quickly, you increase the chance of that idea being realized. Then the tech industry in New York will start to boom. Let’s face it, New York is very independent and it’s hard to get connected to the right people.
D) Then you need to find the web and graphic designers to make the concepts look great.
E) If you could create a trip or an outing with a fair percentage of entrepreneurs, seed investors, and engineers, that would be the icing on the cake. People who are serious will pay for that outing, and strong connections might be built during that event.
The second stage would be taking a prototype to the VC stage:
A) Presentation Workshop
B) Venture Capital
C) Hiring and growing your company.
D) Getting Lawyers
(I believe NY Tech is good for the second stage)
Have a 4 person team lead and organize these NY Tech Garage events. I believe a 2 person combo leader one male & one female president. Two independent VPs, one male and one female. I have a couple of theories on why this might be a better leadership team.
New York has a big international community. Why don’t you leverage that? International companies have been marketing products to us. Why not do the reverse, by leveraging NY’s international community? Incorporate that into startups.
I got tons of suggestions. Contact me if you want more.