Bootstrappers Breakfasts® group welcomes special guest – Deborah Shea who will share her “Billboards in the Desert” website tips.
The roundtable discussion will cover why you have a business website
Increase your prospects list
Convert more prospects into leads and customers
And brand your business to drive the goals created above as a total process
Date: July 26th, 2011
Time: 7:30 -9 am
Venue: Heavenly Cafe 3116 Oak Road Walnut Creek, CA
As Hellbent’s CEO and President, Deb Shea provides oversight to all campaign development and execution, exploring with her team the confluence of creative design, strategy, function, and technology. She founded Hellbent Marketing in 2003 after many years in art and creative director roles within design studios and Silicon Valley tech companies that served a global market. In these positions Deb led teams that spanned Europe, India and Asia, inspiring collaboration among multiple language and cultural groups and creating new graphical standards for online design. This deep experience in brand strategy and outbound marketing materials for sales, web, trade, video and print production is the foundation of Hellbent Marketing. After five years of steady growth, a stream of happy, repeat clients and more than 130 awards for excellence in marketing and creative design, Hellbent added extensive online and SEO expertise services in 2008.
She is the Immediate Past President of the National Association of Women Business Owners (NAWBO) in Silicon Valley and on the Board of Directors for the Peninsula Symphony and the Redwood City Education Foundation. Chosen by the Silicon Valley Business Times as a “2010 100 Top Women of Influence,” Deb was also named a 2010 Top Woman Entrepreneur by Women Entrepreneur Magazine. In 2010, Hellbent Marketing received multiple American Graphic Design honors from the prestigious Graphic Design USA magazine and the 2009 Business of the Year Award from NAWBO-SV.
Mr. Rao will join us for a brief discussion on his thesis from his book: Tempo: Implications of Narrative Driven Decision Making for Startups.
Date: July 19th, 2011
Time: 7:30 -9 am
Venue:Coco’s Restaurant 1206 Oakmead Parkway Sunnyvale, CA
“Narrative-Driven Decision Making for Startups”
Startups already make limited use of narrative concepts such as “Product Market Fit” (a classic example of a tempo shift in a story) to make sense of their evolving, chaotic, roller-coaster experiences. Narrative thinking can arm us with a far richer vocabulary of concepts to help make sense of the entrepreneurial journey and manage it more thoughtfully. I will introduce some of the more intuitive and basic concepts, such as archetypes, doctrines and tempo epochs, and challenge breakfast attendees to assess their experiences, current state and future prospects using those concepts.
Venkatesh Venkat writes a blog (Ribbonfarm) http://ribbonfarm.com looking at topics such as philosophy, art, sociology, and business innovation and technology from unusual perspectives. He also consults, does research and has recently published his book Tempo.http://tempobook.com The book has been praised by many including, John Hagel, co-author of The Power of Pull who notes “Tempo is highly original and engaging…In a world where timing is increasingly central to success…an essential read.” Before turning to full-time writing and consulting, he worked in startup, corporate and academic environments for nearly a decade. He holds a PhD in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Michigan.
At the Bootstrappers Breakfast in San Francisco, we have Steve Mock speaking on how to get someone else to pay for your marketing and how to develop a win-win value proposition to make that happen.
Date: July 15th, 2011
Time: 8 -9:30 am
Venue:Sandbox Suites, 567 Sutter Street, San Francisco, CA
Steve Mock has been the founder or on the management team of 5 venture-backed start-ups and has a proven track record of effective marketing and sales strategy, business planning, and execution of successful technology ventures. He has driven over 150 distribution deals, acquisitions, corporate relationships, and venture financings ($32M) in more than 15 countries. Steve has managed dozens of product launches targeting consumers, enterprises, and OEMs in the Internet, gaming, mobile, enterprise networking, web, and consumer markets.
Patrick Riley, co-founder and CEO of Modern Survey, will share his experiences on bootstrapping Modern Survey into one of fastest growing companies in the Twin Cities. Patrick has nearly twenty years of experience in enterprise technology space and is an expert in emerging web technology trends. His industry expertise has been tapped in the past by organization such as National Public Radio’s “Marketplace,” the Star Tribune and Talent Management Magazine.
Patrick’s leadership and vision have been on display for years in his many contributions to the arts and to his community. Patrick is an accomplished filmmaker and musician. He has played in rock & roll bands, worked as a writer and producer in the film and television industry in Minneapolis, New York, Los Angeles and at the Sundance Filmmaker’s Lab, and has volunteered his time and energy to the Interact Center and Center for Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment. Patrick earned his BS degree in communication arts from the University of Wisconsin–Madison.
First-time entrepreneurs in the Silicon Valley may have a million questions about incorporation, banking, administrative tools, insurance, renting out office space, etc. Bootstrappers has collated links to blog posts which may answer or point entrepreneurs to resources for this.
Summer is coming and if you have not been to a Bootstrappers Breakfast meeting in awhile please put us on your calendar again.
Invite a friend: Know someone you think would benefit from attending a Bootstrappers Breakfast meeting? Encourage them to join us!
Here’s what other attendees have said about the group
Encouraging yet realistic. A diverse group sharing common challenges from both subjective and objective perspectives.
Very helpful and interesting conversation!
Great info – and Great collaboration
This is the one networking event that I try to never miss. It is relaxed and fun and I always learn something. Well worth the time and a great place to network and learn.
Good mix of business experience with technical know-how and eager ‘new’ entrepreneurs.
This is an excerpt from this interview with Matt Cameron of Corporate Catapult by Gareth Rose of iPitch. Matt highlights the value of the connections that he made at several Bootstrappper Breakfasts.
When I reached out to Gareth to get his permission to use this excerpt I asked him what iPitch was and he said “IPitch is an online community which educates and connects Australian entrepreneurs to help them startup and grow their businesses.”
Hat Tip to Ron Fredericks of LectureMaker for splicing together the excerpt.
We did some brainstorming at a recent breakfast about events and co-working facilities where you can meet other potential co-founders or look to join an early stage startup. Here is the list that we came up with.
Hacker Dojo costs $100 a month and will give you access to the co-working space and a chance to meet a lot of other founders on a informal basis and compare notes.
PlugandPlay is another space that has a lot of entrepreneurs, it’s more expensive but has several hundred teams either on-site or affiliated.
Hackers and Founders is a meetup devoted to founders. It’ a chance for informal conversation about technology and business subjects.
Startup Weekend is also an event worth attending when they come back to to the Bay Area, it’s a 54 hour “stress test” that let’s you see how folks perform under a small amount of pressure.
FounderDating is devoted to helping folks find co-founders
Startup2Startup is another group focused on getting early stage technology entrepreneurs together for a talk and networking.
The Founder Institute runs a structured program for entrepreneurs that is getting a lot of positive recognition. They run a four month training
SVASE runs Startup-U events several times a month with speakers who address startup issues, they would be an opportunity to network with attendees for co-founders
The MIT/Stanford Venture Lab runs monthly events that attract a lot of early stage technology entrepreneurs.
RT @dorait: Social media is fragmenting into social platforms that are best of breed for a certain kind of social engagement. http://t.c ... #2012/02/02
