Week in Review: July 25-31, 2010

Erhardt Graf

In addition to the Venture Cafe’s normal Thursday time-slot, we also opened our space on Saturday night, July 24, to Drumbeat Boston, an event put on by Mozilla Drumbeat, and the July Awesome Foundation announcement. (The food from Flour “3″ was generously sponsored by the MIT Center for Future Civic Media.) The event, a celebration of the open web, invited advocates for open-source software and technology to gather and discuss the state of the current state of internet freedom, as well as issues of privacy. Much like Venture Cafe’s virtual nametag “working on” field, the participants’ nametags had a space for an ice-breaker along the lines of Whimwords, a concept defined by Rudi Seitz, wherein participants place words on their nametags to evoke new conversations (though not for dating purposes).  Word choices ranged from those that summarized your job or passion  to non-English words that may not translate, but define you particularly well. Drumbeat Boston’s other activities also included a “spectogram” or “opinion exploration” exercise, where facilitators made a statement and participants, based on their reaction to the statement, placed themselves on a line somewhere between agree and disagree, and then discussed their response with the idea that as one heard others’ opinions and reasoning one’s own mind might be changed, resulting in a physical shift along the line. The last question, particularly appropriate for the event read, “I know what Mozilla Drumbeat is.” If you don’t, get to know their mission to preserve the open web here.  Finally, the Awesome Foundation announced their July fellow, Dr. Paul Gardner-Stephen, developer of The Serval Project, a new mobile technology that allows phones to work without phone towers or satellites. This type of technology, which as proved successful in tests around the Austrailian Outback (including during the announcement!), may be a key component in efforts to save lives during natural disasters: definitely awesome.

Dharmishta

Thursday was another successful night of conversation and connection, with a “VC Unplugged” discussion and one-on-one meetings with Dan Rosen (@VentureDan) of Highland Capital Partners and Eric Hjerpe (@Efhjerpe) of Kepha Partners, in association with the New England Venture Capital Association. This week also signals a transition for August, when NEVCA will be taking a break from holding office hours until September, and Highland Capital Partners will return to the cafe for 2 days of office hours on August 19 and 26. Watch the calendar and Twitter feed, because we just might have another NEW VC firm in the house in August as well!

The open Q&A session provided some valuable insights on the importance of ‘market timing’ in launching a start-up. Sometimes this means disrupting an existing market, while at other times it means tapping a nascent market that if you’re successful, could be dominated by your product. Eric and Dan ended their session by warning entrepreneurs not to accept a VC out of desperation without making sure that they are the right one for you. Once you sign with a VC, it’s very difficult to change, their advice was to make the right decision the first time around.

The general din in the cafe throughout the afternoon indicated new and useful conversations between regulars and newcomers — have you been part of the dialogue yet? Your opportunity to join comes every Thursday from 3-8pm.

In beer news, our Cisco IPA was replaced by Frosty Knuckle Ale and the Kona Wailua Wheat was replaced by Troegs Dreamweaver Wheat, joining Brooklyn Brown and Brooklyn Lager to complete our four taps and plethora of bottles. Drop by next week to enjoy any of our beers for yourself.