Event: NWEN Workshop: Essentials of VC Financing for Early Stage Companies [link]
Date: February 14, 2008
Time: 7:30 AM - 12:00 PM
Venue: WSGR Offices, Seattle
Price: $65 for members; $115 for non-members
Presenters: Craig Sherman (WSGR), Steve Yentzer (DLA/Piper), Lucinda Stewart (OVP), Tom Spadafone (Vantos)
If you are the founder/CEO of one of the many tech startups in Seattle, fill out the information about your roots and help create the "map" of the Puget Sound. This will become a physical poster and will be a big hit on most tech blogs once it hit the market.
Fill out the form today!
Check out an example of what this would look like.
Kelly Smith did an informal survey with a dozen entrepreneurs to find out what is the most stressful moments in a entrepreneur life, primarily focused on the first few months. The answers are great and you should check it out.
He used this on his talk on NWEN Friday morning and as Brent Lamphier (Athleon Sports) and I were going down the elevator we were discussing how good it is for somebody to bring up the "tough side" of being an entrepreneur, because we usually hear a lot of the great things, but not as much as the tough reality.
Brent compared that to a talk from Glenn Kelman (Redfin) he attended at the UW a few days ago, and how Glenn is all cheerful and optimistic, without telling you the real pain it will be.
I think is time for me to have a real logo for the Seattle 2.0 site*.
I could open Illustrator, PhotoShop, CorelDraw and a few other tools and try to do it myself, but I'm very familiar with the results of what I can do and I'd have to fire myself. To avoid this whole cycle of getting disappointed with the results and then decide to find some professional help, I'll just do it from the beginning, with a contest.
- How it works: You design a logo for the Seattle 2.0 blog. If I like it better than any other logo (if there is any other logo), then you are the winner.
- Prize: Besides bragging rights, of course, Your design firm (or yourself) gets a sidebar banner on the Seattle 2.0 blog that links to your site for one year**. This is priceless!
- Submission Deadline: Let's say, 4 weeks from today, on March 10th.
- Eligibility: This being the Seattle 2.0 site, I have to limit it to only Puget Sound-based companies and individuals to submit entries.
I'll also blog about all the submitted logos, so you get some benefit even if you don't win.
You don't have too, but if you want to specify a tagline, feel free. If you want to specify matching template colors, feel free to do so as well. I really care more about the logo.
Just keep in mind what the Seattle 2.0 is about: Entrepreneurs helping entrepreneurs; Seattle Startups; Technology; Web 2.0;
*During the WSA Industry Achievement Award last week, for my surprise, the Seattle 2.0 "logo" was displayed. I felt ashamed of having Verdana 24pt in orange as being considered our "logo".
** Over the next 1 year this banner is expected to get 200,000+ impressions.
I "installed" FeedBurner on this blog about 20 days ago and for the first ten days the stats reporting was really flaky. The last week or so it has been very stable and today we just reached, for the first time, 300 feed subscribers.
Add to that the 96 "email subscribers" and we have a stable audience of about 400 readers.
Now, me being the person that I'm (i.e., love stats and their tools) I can attest this is absolutely not the reality. First of, feed subscriber count has many flaws (search for Vanessa Fox post about it), like "dead subscribers", or people that just glance at the title of your post. Second, email subscribers also doesn't guarantee that anyone actually opened the email and read it.
Do I think 400 people read this blog everyday? Absolutely not, but close.
Google Analytics (which doesn't include Feed readers) averages about 200 visitors per day, if you assume 50% of the feed subscribers do read the content, that adds another 150 not counted by Google Analytics, for a total of 350 readers per day. Not that far from Feedburner stats.
Event: MITEF Dinner: All Together, Now! Implications of Convergence in the Wireless Industry [link]
Date: February 20, 2008
Time: 5:00 PM - 8:30PM
Venue: Hyatt Regency, Bellevue
Price: $48/seat
Presenters: Peter Van Oppen (Trilogy Equity Partners), Sumit Agarwal (Google), Barry Davis (Clearwire), John DeFeo (Coco)
This week we announced the contest to create the Seattle 2.0 logo. So far things are not going great with zero submissions. Although, 3 designers said they might think of something to send, which is far from an actual logo.
Any suggestions from the readers on how can we either spicy it up the contest or get a logo for us?
One possibility would be to get a sponsor for the site and use that money to hire a designer do create the logo.
Event: NWEN Workshop: Brand Essentials for Startups and Early Stage Businesses [link]
Date: February 20, 2008
Time: 7:30 AM - noon
Venue: Lake Union Crew, Seattle
Price: ?
Presenters: Parker LePla
Event: Ignite Seattle [link]
Date: February 19, 2008
Time: 7PM
Venue: CHAC, Seattle
Price: Free
Presenters: To-be-announced
The Early Stage Investment Forum is accepting applications for its 2008 event. Members pay $22 to apply, non-members pay $88.
There is very little information on their site at this point, not even including basic information on who can apply, what's the selection criteria, etc. All they say is that they'll submit instructions once you pay.
January, 2007
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