Week in Review & This Week in the Cafe: June 27 – Jul 3

This week, the Venture Cafe’s  extended hours (now 3-8pm) were paired with a new format for NEVCA Open Office Hours. The sages this week were Chris Sheehan of Common Angels and R. Stephen McCormack of Commonwealth Capital Ventures. We were very happy to welcome back the New England Venture Capital Association for another week of face time with an investor, without the pressure of a funding meeting.  The new format had Chris and Stephen leading a discussion and general Q&A for aspiring and active entrepreneurs, many of whom are competing for prizes from MassChallenge. Because so many first-time startups came, this new format was especially helpful both for relaying general information to the group of 20+ who attended, as well as pre-empting the frequently-asked-questions that were previously being repeated in the one-on-one sessions. While this Q&A ‘unplugged’ session from 3-4:30pm is open to walk-ins, NEVCA and VenCaf organizers would appreciate interested parties signing up through the Google form.

The cafe had a diverse group of MassChallenge competitors to meet with organizers David Constantine and Salimah Noorudin about their projects. The range of start-up ideas was vast and ranged from international health care to a new concept for a used bookstore, to quite a few web applications and software designs. MassChallenge’s office hours will continue in the Venture Cafe for the next two weeks. Walk-ins are welcome, but to guarantee your spot, sign-up through Sparkcloud Open Doors, which will be posted soon. Best of luck to all competitors and we are excited to keep up with your progress! (Also, this coming Wednesday is the opening of MassChallenge’s new offices in the Innovation District. Sign up to attend here.)

Our later hours and NEVCA new Office Hours format also came with two new beers on tap. We are currently featuring Cisco Whale’s Tale Pale Ale, from Nantucket, and Cape Ann Fisherman’s Brew Amber Lager, from Gloucester, MA.

We’ll be back next week from 3-8pm for more Q&A with MassChallenge, and NEVCA will return in two weeks – hope to see you soon in the cafe!