Week in Review & This Week in the Cafe: July 11-16

So your start-up is up and running. You have a dedicated team, you’ve piqued the interest or secured funding of a couple VC’s and now your next step is how to handle your PR. To cover this aspect of the start-up process, Galen Moore (@GalenMoore), of Mass High Tech, a news source for the New England technology and innovation scene, held open hours in the Cafe, speaking with entrepreneurs about how to step away from the development perspective and think about how to garner media exposure. Galen gave personalized advice to those who attended, but his blog gave a good base-line:

“Understanding the media is simple if you understand that journalists (the good ones) are mostly trying to do one thing: be valuable to our readers. [...] So, if you’re pitching a story to a news person, imagine yourself reading it, instead of pitching it, and ask yourself: ‘Would I find this valuable?’”

A simple shift in perspective, according to Galen, may help immensely in pitches to the media and may help your start-up acquire the media exposure needed to reach the public.

Galen Moore’s Office Hours were joined by Week 3 of Q&A with MassChallenge, (just in time for the announcement of the semi-finalists moving on to Round 2!), and the new offering – Connectors Corner, hosted by Yoon Lee and Paola Mesadieu of Boston World Partnerships. Our continued relations with these organizations and others keep us up to date on entrepreneurial activity in and around Boston and bring more services to all of our attendees!

Drop by next Thursday July 15 for the return of the New England Venture Capital Association with Ben Levitan of In-Q-Tel and Antonio Rodriguez from Matrix Partners, as well as Office Hours with Scott Kirsner, Innovation Economy columnist at the Boston Globe (sign up) and the 2nd of the monthly “Third Thursday” #IDTechUp gatherings focused around International Development and Technology. We might even have a visit from some members of New England International Donors group in the cafe!

For more details, see the calendar, and follow us on Twitter @VentureCafe. See you there!