Benjamin Kuo’s Blog

The Los Angeles Venture Association has launched a new entrepreneur and startup focused event next month, at their Meet the VC event, which will allow entrepreneurs to get to meet pretty much every one of the local (and some non-local) venture funds in a “speed dating” session. A few of the folks involved have told me there’s looking to let entrepreneurs in the area know about this opportunity, and are inviting them to apply for a spot at the event.

Entrepreneurs tell me that one of the biggest barriers of entry to funding is getting face time with venture capitalists; it looks like LAVA is looking to overcome the lack of time (on the side of venture capitalists) and the lack of connections (on the entrepreneur side) with this, and it might help increase the probability of deals closing here in the area. In nothing else, the fact you’ll have all the venture firms in the same room means that you’ll overcome one of the biggest barriers to deal flow in Southern California’s high tech and venture ecosystem, which is how spread out we really are (and associated traffic delays).

The event is being held on November 17th.

Most of our readers are aware we run an online calendar focused on events in Southern California that might be of interest to our business/high tech readership. A portion of the calendar also goes out in our daily email every day. Local high tech groups tell us that the calendar really helps them to get the word out about their events.

One of the most frequent questions we get is “how do we get our event on the calendar?” The better question is, what’s the best way to get an event listed, and what are we looking for in an event to list it?

1. First, it has to be in Southern California. For some reason, we still frequently get people who think we cover ALL startups all over the world, but, as much as I’d love to go to your conference in Helsinki, it’s not going to be useful to our readers.

2. Next, it needs to be an event of interest to the high tech community. That can and does include many, business, marketing, legal, and other events, which are associated with running and or affecting high tech, biotech, venture capital-backed, and other related “technology” businesses.

3. It helps if the event is run by a nonprofit, or recognized conference organizer in the industry. We list events from all the local organizations which are helping to promote the local industry, and those which are providing exposure to local startups and high tech companies. We usually do not list sales seminars, sales pitches, “free” briefings designed purely to attract customers. Though we’ll take advertising for those types of events.

4. Next, make sure you have a URL (preferred) or person to contact. It’s amazing in this day and age where there is no web page to look at for the latest event information. We don’t list addresses of events, because we want you to connect with the local organization and get the full details on the event (time, place, speakers, etc.)–just in case the event changes or is cancelled, which actually happens very, very frequently.

5. Have a short, concise title and one paragraph description for the event. We reserve the right to edit these descriptions (and frequently do, for clarity or other reasons). We also will not list, or will heavily modify, events which will snarl up our email newsletters. Even though we may not care personally, apparently there are enough corporate email firewalls out there which block out keywords like: viagra, marijuana, liquor, beer, alcohol, wine (yep, those wine tastings which are so popular get blocked), sports (baseball, football, etc.), gambling (mentions of Las Vegas et al). We also occasionally will block out the names of certain companies or event organizers who somehow–although legitimate businesses–have managed to reliably trigger spam filters, particularly at AOL and Microsoft’s Hotmail.

6. Finally, submit your event to our web site. It’s by far the most efficient way to get the event listed. Emails to me do get processed, but I’m much slower and will just do the steps above.

Do feel free to email me directly, as well, or put me on your event distribution list, as that also helps to make sure we get your event out there.

ps. If your event isn’t in Southern California, we also lists events on our other sites, and in particular the Seattle/Portland, Colorado/Utah/Arizona, and Texas. We’re not listing events (except for partners/exceptional events) in Silicon Valley right now, because there seems to be as many events in Silicon Valley in one day, as there are events in all the other markets combined in a month.

Most of the technology community in Los Angeles is familiar with the Twiistup events, which mixes startups, entrepreneurs, investors, and others in what has been a fashionable and casual environment — last time, in a private hangar in Santa Monica in “Blade Runner” style decor. Francisco Dao, the new producer of the event, tells me that applications are still open to apply for the next event, and that they’re looking for interesting and innovative startups to showcase at the event.

Twiistup is selecting 10 companies who present their firm at the event, which is transitioning into a two-day event at the Universal Hilton in Universal City.  The event is being held Thursday and Friday, July 30 and 31st. Judges this year are Brady Brim-DeForest of Tubefilter, Neil Patel, who co-founded Crazy Egg and KISSmetrics, Brian Solis of bub.blicio.us and FutureWorks PR, Andrew Warner of Mixergy, and Mark Suster, a VC at GRP Partners.

In what was a remarkable turnout–given the horrible economy we’re in–there were more than a thousand people at last night’s Twiistup 5 event. Twiistup 5–the brainchild of Mike Macadaan–lets startups show off their products to the crowd in a very non-conference setting (this time, a private hangar at the Santa Monica airport).

Cogi, a service which helps you capture meetings and phone calls in text transcripts, scored the judge’s award (I was one of the judges);  the other firms were Causecast, eHow, FixYa, GoGreenSolar, Meebo, RoboDynamics, TheScene, Totspot, Viewdle, and Yammer.

A new effort to spur venture investment in Los Angeles–called NITRO–has gotten under way, and is looking to bring together entrepreneurs with mentors and improve the quality of companies in the area. The NITRO effort is pulling together a list of local mentors — including Robert Flynn (Modern Feed & Supply), Bryce Benjamin (Tech Coast Angeles, Language Weaver), Suresh Nihalani (Clearmesh, Accelerated Networks, ACT Networks), Robert Siegel (X/Seed Capital, Stanford), Zareh Baghdasarian (Chromodyne, Monterey Networks, myShape), John Morris (Tech Coast Angels, GKM Ventures), Tuck Newport, Richard Levin (Tech Coast Angels, Private Investor Forum), Richard Morganstern (TCA), Joe Boystak (Chopin Capital), Raymond Cohen (Symphony Medical), Darin Chen (Hillcrest Ventures), Warren Grundfest (UCLA), Sharon Stevenson (Okapi VC) and Mike Sinsheimer (MedTech Catalyst), among others– to aid aspiring entrepreneurs with one on one sessions. The new effort is being headed by Aaron Ross, a Bay-area transplant with an interest in entrepeneurship.

The group is kicking off February 4th with an event focused on technology & physical sciences.

Self promotion alert: I’ll be speaking on an M&A and financing panel in Westlake Village tonight for the Gold Coast Business Forum, in case anyone is interested in hearing some views on how you might (cross your fingers) get your financing or M&A deal done this year.

A lot of folks in Southern California use our calendar of high tech related events in planning out their week. A few folks have requested that we make it easier to find stuff in their neighborhood, so we’ve rolled out a filter by general location. We’ve always had the events color-coded, but now you can select a specific area (say, San Diego, or Los Angeles) and just get the events for those cities. This is still in beta so let us know if you run into any issues.

If your events aren’t showing up on the calendar, let us know. We’re trying to include all of the community-focused events and groups in the area, plus conferences being held in the region.

The Technology Council of Southern California (formerly the Software Council of Southern California) has generously passed on a code for a great discount to hear Tony Perkins of AlwaysOn speak at their annual Technology Industry Awards next week. The event is being held at the Millenium Biltmore in Los Angeles, February 28th, from 6-9pm.

Tony, as most of you know, was the founder of Red Herring magazine and a well regarded Silicon Valley speaker. The event also features recognition of a great set of area technology firms. It’s always a great event, and an opportunity to get out and network with CEOs, executives, and others in the community.

If you’re interested in going, they’ve provided me with a discount to allow readers of this blog and web site to register at their member rate, $79 (a $71 savings). Go to: http://www.tcosc.org/awards/index.html

Use discount code:  TECH08.

I’ll be at the event, feel free to say hello…

Brian Deagon of Investor’s Business Daily has two good pieces published today on the growth of the technology industry on LA’s west side, along with an overall piece on the surge in informal networking groups (Lunch 2.0, TwiistUp, etc.) in the area.

If anyone hasn’t gotten enough of technology events, there’s a boat load of events this week focused on the technology industry in the area.

First of all, out in Palm Springs, there’s Demo 2008 — where 77 new startups from all over the country are pitching what they are doing. Tradationally, lots of Silicon Valley “buzz” around those startups comes out of the conference, which has been held down here for several years now.

Second, all over Los Angeles there are a ton of events linked to Los Angeles Technology Week. The kickoff is today at lunch with a keynote by astronaut Sally Ride. Tonight’s Tech Coast Angels Fast Pitch is always very interesting. Other events of particular note is the open screening session by the Pasadena Angels, and a session on the Future of Game Development.

For those folks down in San Diego, the San Diego Venture Group has their 2008 Venture Capital outlook scheduled for Thursday. Finally, out in the Inland Empire the University of La Verne has their third annual Venture Capital conference scheduled for Wednesday — also notably spearheaded by a number of Tech Coast Angels.