Friday, January 25, 2008

Blog Release: Help Startups Events

Locally:

Help Startups Meeting on 2/19

In our last issue we morphed the lyrics of the Staind song, "It's Been a While", to notify you of our upcoming Help Startups meeting. We are getting back into the swing, and will be holding regular meetings and related events from now on.

Our next event is on Tuesday, February 19th from 5:30 - 7:30 pm, and we're going back home to our cozy nook - the private upstairs lounge of Doc's Place on Walnut Street in Shadyside. This is a casual networking event in which you can warm yourself beside the fire with a winter toddy, and rekindle entrepreneurial friendships. We'll be providing Doc's yummy pizza for your eating pleasure - you cover the liquid refreshments!

We have an interesting panel discussion planned for March entitled "Where Do We Go From Here?" The topic is the current state of the entrepreneurial environment, and what needs to be done to further improve things. We are working on lining up a great panel of leaders from the entrepreneurial community - people who can help us affect needed improvements. The event will be held on Tuesday, March 18th, so please hold that evening open!

Mega-regionally (interesting regional perspective):

Midwest Venture Summit

Legend has it that a long time ago a famous bank robber, Willie Sutton, was asked why he robbed banks. He replied, "Because that's where the money is!"

Well that's why we try to get our companies into Venture Fairs, to quickly get in front of many potential investors - where the money is. In our last issue we reminded you about our own 3 Rivers Venture Fair and the Philadelphia Angel Fair. This time we are focusing on the Midwest Venture Summit, which is held in Chicago on March 17 & 18. While Chicago may seem to be somewhat removed from our area, when you look at their web site you will see they include Western PA in their 'zone of influence'.

One of our local VC firms, Meakem Becker, is an active participant, and provided funding to one of last year's presenters, LiquidTalk. Check out their testimonial on the Midwest Venture Summit's Home page!

One thing though, the deadline for submission is Wednesday, January 30th, so move fast! Sorry, about the late notice, but we just found out about this event today.

Pittsburgh entrepreneurial fyi:

Some may recall the TechyVent newsletter that was 'The Bible' of entrepreneurial events in our area. Well, since it's been gone nothing has appeared to take its place - until we launched Help Startups!

Our Events Calendar is even more comprehensive than what TechyVent was. Check it out - you'll see things like three different events listed on Thursday, January 31st. Here's a partial list of the organizations that are posting their events on the calendar - Pittsburgh Technology Council, Duquesne University SBDC, Carnegie Library Business Branch, Entrepreneurial Thursdays, University of Pittsburgh, Carnegie-Mellon University Project Olympus, DevHouse Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh Central Keystone Innovation Zone, Product Strategy Network, TiE Pittsburgh and many others!

If you belong to or know any organizations providing entrepreneurial related events who aren't participating, please tell them to get their events posted. It's easy - just Register as a user on Help Startups (which doesn't cost anything) and then you can post events!

OH, and remember to check out Help Startups at least once a week to see what's happening!

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