Total Recall represented at youngStartup New York Venture Summit
The youngStartup 2008 New York Venture Summit was held on June 24th and 25th, and Total Recall was there to show off Snowball and to network with other entrepreneurs and investors. It was a very busy schedule, with a very well-attended welcome reception on the evening of the 24th at the Microsoft offices on 6th Avenue, and with a very heavily attended round of panels and presentations on the 25th.
Representing Total Recall and Snowball at the event were both myself, Erich Hegenberger, and Sean Marriott, programmer and development/marketing avisor who flew in from England especially for this conference. We came prepared to be remembered, and certainly managed to make an impression of some sort with our Snowball shirts and ties.
We made a lot of great contacts already at the reception, including a brief chat with Steve Barsh, who gave us excellent advice straight from his blog.
The main event was held at the New Yorker Hotel, next to Penn Station and just a short walk from Macy’s and the Empire State Building. What a view from the top floor, especially at night!
After an early morning welcome by organizer Joe Benjamin, founder and CEO of youngStartup, we got underway with a panel of VCs discussing and answering questions on how to go the VC route. The panelists were all enthusiastic about investment growth with many capital-efficient startups moving to the New York area, and had a lot of good advice for entrepreneurs seeking funding at any stage. Steven Davis of New York Business Practice, the Venture Law Group and Heller Ehrman, reminded investors that VCs may look at 100 business plans for every investment they make. Andrew Clapp of Brook Venture Partners gave the very sound advice of engaging the listener in a dialog instead of just rattling off a memorized pitch, and Bart Stuck of Signal Lake spoke to my heart of the importance of getting investors’ interest through customer validation – a large cashier’s check stapled to the business plan would be a good attention-getter!
Organizer Joe Benjamin, founder/CEO of youngStartup
The VC panelists had good news and bad news for hopeful entrepreneurs
The first panel session was followed by three intense rounds of presentations by 49 selected startups, who delivered highly-polished pitches timed to the second. This was punctuated by equally intense networking around the 50-odd display tables, with a quick break for lunch sometime in between. The Snowball display was a bit of a last-minute arrangement, since all of the display tables had already been accounted for. But with some last-minute efforts by organizer Joe Benjamin, we were graciously led to an unclaimed table. We made a number of contacts, some of which we might not have gotten without this prominent spot, so thanks Joe, for taking the time from an obviously demanding schedule to help us out!
Later in the afternoon, there were two more panel sessions on exit strategies and term sheet negotiations, with lots more good advice on building a company to be a profitable, independent entity and not just a designer sales item. There were a lot of interesting discussions around how to valuate a company and the changing role of the entrepreneur in different stages of growth, with some lively exchanges on the fairness of owner dilution.
All in all, it was an intense day with lots of new information, and as we were reminded by Daniel Schultz of DFJ Gotham Ventures, running a startup is not a dash, it’s a marathon! Unfortunately some participants dropped out of the race a bit too early, and were not on hand to accept the iPods they would have one in the end-of session raffle!
Thanks again to the organizers and sponsers for helping to make this a highly successful event for all!