1/18/11

1/18/11

Good morning, All, and our thanks to British Airways for making it possible. Yes, we are one of the winners of the BA Face-to-Face Competition, which is bringing American entrepreneurs to London to meet with the British business community, so let’s use this opportunity to meet, London-based members!

Arrival Date: February 4. Meetings: February 5. February 6: happy to plan an SOS gathering, so let me know if you’re in, and let’s get together at some pub or other. Open to suggestions. We love to put faces to email addresses and always happy say hello, no matter where in the world you happen to be.

This week’s good news: congrats go to pixable.com, who just launched their photofeed app, which will sort and categorize your Facebook photos. You can read all about it in techcrunch (Pixable’s Photofeed Sorts And Categorizes Your Facebook Photos: http://tcrn.ch/f4R7ob) and/or mashable (Pixable Aims to Change the Way you Browse Facebook Photos: http://on.mash.to/heRZLC)

Speaking of important dates coming up:
InSITEapplication deadline – January 21: http://insiteny.org. InSITE provides early stage companies with pro bono consulting services to help raise Seed or Series A financing. InSITE companies have raised over $215 million in venture funding since 2000. Beyond mentoring services, the program also provides networking opportunities, speaker events, and a final pitch event featuring our affiliated VC and Angel partners. More information can be found on the website.

NYC BigApps Competition – January 26 is the deadline for entry
The NYC BigApps Competition will reward the developers of the most creative, best implemented, and impactful applications for delivering information from the City of New York’s NYC.gov Data Mine to interested users. Software developers will compete for $20,000 in cash, wide exposure for their work, and a meeting with the Mayor. Submissions may be any kind of software application, be it for the web, a personal computer, a mobile handheld device, SMS, or any software platform broadly available to the public. For more information and to enter: http://nycbigapps.com/challenges/81/

TechStars #Boston now accepting applications for class of Spring 2011 http://www.TechStars.org/schedule. You have until January 13 for the early application deadline. Deadline for all applications is January 31.

Pre-registration is open for select events taking place in Social Media Week cities all across the world. In total there are nine cities participating in Social Media Week (Feb 7-11)–powered globally by headline sponsor Nokia Cities participating: New York, London, Paris, Rome, Hong Kong, Istanbul, Toronto, San Francisco and Sao Paulo. To register, simply visit socialmediaweek.org, pick a city and click on schedule. Please note that more events will be added over the coming weeks.

Call for speakers: The first Geoweb Summit focused on New York LBS startups, geoweb in retail, media and advertising, and location analytics. The second Geoweb Summit, happening May 12th, again at Dumbo Loft in Brooklyn, will explore location technology platforms, digital out-of-home and augmented reality. Already confirmed to speak are founders and CEOs of companies including HopStop, Goby, Gypsii and Stickybits. Watch the video interview with Chris Grayson who will moderate the AR panel. If you are a founder of a geoweb company, you are invited to speak at the Geoweb Spring Summit. Contact geoweb forum at http://geowebforum.com/contact

Pieces we like for this week:
Mark Shuster (Both Sides of the Table: Going to Raise VC? Here’s a Primer on Process, People & Powerpoint Deck http://bit.ly/dILZwE) gives a very quick primer on all the stuff nobody ever tells you about raising venture capital. Of course, all VCs are different and to prove a point, take a look at Bijan Sabet’s take on what a VC is looking for (http://bijansabet.com/post/2711985209/meeting-with-a-vc). Then Shuster cites Bijan in his How to Handle a VC Presentation with No Deck,which, just for the record, he doesn’t recommend. But, hey, we, too, believe in presenting both sides of the table.

Next: Angel Profiling: The Wild and Wooly (and Expanding) Angel Universe from David B. Lerner, always one of our faves. Bubblemap included, along with definitions of the dramatis personae, and always interesting to see where there’s overlap. http://bit.ly/fTRJlW

Here, here! Finally, Vivek Wadhwa’s TechCrunch piece on China’s rush to hold the world’s largest number of patents (taking a page from Silicon Valley’s playbook, of course): Let’s Compete on Innovation Rather Than Patents: http://tcrn.ch/exk10L A lot of good points and suggestions, and couldn’t agree more.

Once again, we leave you with a Chuckle of the Week: The Things Real People Don’t Say About Advertising. http://tpdsaa.tumblr.com/page/2. Hope you enjoy and do read on, because, as always, help is on the way…

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