Thursday, February 9, 2012 3:00-8:00 PM: Venture Café in Session

3:00-5:00 PM Building Global Entrepreneurial Connections

Meet the world! Come meet representatives of international consulates and agencies for a Venture Café focused on global business, innovation and connection. The event is hosted by the Consulates of Switzerland, Germany, France, Canada, and Haiti, in addition to UK Trade and Investment, the Quebec Delegation, the Netherlands Foreign Investment Agency, Invest Northern Ireland, and Innovation Norway. This is an opportunity to make connections for doing business in specific markets of interest and with companies from those markets here in the U.S. In addition, there will be local international consultants and non-profits in attendance who work in a variety of other global markets. Take advantage of the private meetings spaces available at the CIC to meet with the international hosts and business guests.

There will also be a representative of the Boston Entrepreneurs BREW week 2012 participating to meet up informally with those interested in building out the global dimension of BREW 2012 and how the Boston entrepreneurial community can make more global connections during Brew Week 2012.

5:00-6:00 PM  The Business of Mobile Apps - Apptopia

Learn new strategies for maximizing app revenue with Apptopia this Thursday. Apptopia will talk about the innovation and change happening with platforms, analytics, and advertising. They want to share with you things they have learned that can help increase usage and traffic, will talk for the first time specifics about the launch of Apptopia, and how they can help app developers revitalize their apps. Register here.  Networking/reception in the Café starts after the event.

4:30-6:30 PM Info Table for Lean Startup Machine

Come learn about the upcoming Lean Startup Machine weekend, Feb 17-19th. Lean Startup Machine is a metrics-driven startup competition that provides participants with a valuable framework of tools, techniques, and resources designed to help early-stage companies understand their customers, invalidate their assumption, iterate rapidly, and reduce risk. Learn more and register here .

5:30-7:00 PM  Info Table for Institute for Human Center Design

Do you want to learn how to integrate a more human-centered approach to the design of product or service? Stop by and speak with Jennifer Otitigbe, Director of User Experience and Research from the Institute for Human Centered Design, a global NGO that assists organizations to understand and improve the accessibility and usability of their products and technologies across the spectrum of age and functional ability. Companies can drop to get an individualized orientation on:

1) Recommended user evaluation strategies;
2) How to involve users in refining your design concepts;
3) Accessibility reviews of a website or software product; and
4) Understanding accessibility for service oriented ventures.

We hope you stop by, grab a drink and connect!

See you in the Café,

Pardis

Hi everyone! This week, we have a few events to get you connecting, thinking and dressing better. Thursday, we have MTDC Office Hours with Vice President Nick Pappas, an advice booth for men’s fashion and MBBP’s panel on Series ‘A’ Venture Investing in 2012; Will We Turn the Corner? Coming up next week: Venture Café goes International.

Thursday, February 2, 2012 3:00-8:00 PM: Venture Café in Session

4:00-5:30 PM Office Hours with MTDC

This week we welcome back one of our partners to the Café the Massachusetts Technology Development Corporation – for a series of office hours. This week stop by and chat with Nick Pappas, Vice President of MTDC. He will be at a table in the Café taking meetings on a first-come, first-serve basis.  Sign up to meet with Nick by adding your name to the list located at the bar.

4:00 – 5:30 PM Series “A ” Venture Investing in 2012 Panel 

Join us for a lively panel discussion and review of 2011 Series “A” deals and a look into 2012. Moderated by: David Verrill Panelists: Braden Bohrmann, Dayna Grayson, Eric Hjerpe and Jon Auerbach. The panel will be in the Havana room on the 5th floor, followed by a reception/networking in the Café (register here).

4:30 – 6:30 PM Advice Booth – For the Betterment of Men’s Fashion

Emmi Sorokin is a national menswear stylist specializing in wardrobe and style makeovers exclusively for men in their early twenties to mid fifties. Emmi’s focus is business casual, weekend wear, and demystifying the hazy zone in between a suit and jeans and a t-shirt. Clients’ post makeover experiences include doubling their income, landing more dates, getting a raise triple their colleagues, and even making Boston’s Best Dressed List.

Ask her the fashion/clothing/style related questions you have rattling up in your noggin.  You can learn more about Emmi and get easy style tips on her blog, twitter (@askemmi), and Yelp.

Coming Up: Building Global Entrepreneurial Connections

On February 9th Venture Café goes global. Come meet representatives of international consulates and agencies hosting a special Venture Café focused on global business, innovation and connection. Sponsored by the Global Innovators Group.

We hope you stop by, grab a drink and connect!

See you in the Café,

Pardis

Thursday, January 26, 3:00 – 8:00 PM: Venture Café in Session

3:00-5:00 PM TCN Upstart Roundtable 

Come meet Javier Segovia Founder and CEO of Tap ‘n Tap who will share his stories with early stage entrepreneurs, answering questions and mingling about ‘the thing that is keeping them up at night’.  To sign up for this month’s Roundtable, click here.

4:00 – 6:30 PM BetaVanguard Info Table

BostonBeta will be using Venture Café to soft launch the Beta Vanguard website, making this the first event where they will interview startups and generate stories.

The aim of the Vanguard is several-fold:

• Provide more extensive coverage of startups outside the Bay area, drawing the focus away from Silicon Valley and delivering “tech news for the rest of us.”
• Share articles and perspectives from leaders and thinkers in the tech field.
• Inspire meaningful dialogue among members of the entrepreneurial community.

Come meet the team and have your startup stories told in articles launched on the website over the following week.

5:30-7:00 PM Meet and Greet 10 Russian Cleantech Companies

10 cleantech companies from the Skolkovo (Russia) Innovation Center (a partner of MIT) will be in the café for a meet and greet after their local investor panel, sponsored by Market Access International, Inc.

Coming up:

Register for MBBP’s upcoming Series ‘A’ Venture Investing in 2012; Will We Turn the Corner? Panel on February 2 from 4:00 to 5:30 PM. Moderated by: David Verrill Panelists: Braden Bohrmann, Dayna Grayson, Eric Hjerpe and Jon Auerbach followed by a reception/networking in the Café. Registration closes January 25th.

We hope you stop by, grab a drink and connect!

Thursday, January 19, 2012 Venture Café in Session

4:00-5:30 PM Office Hours with MTDC

This week we welcome back one of our partners to the Café the Massachusetts Technology Development Corporation – for a series of office hours. This week stop by and chat with Nick Pappas, Vice President of MTDC. He will be at a table in the Café taking meetings on a first-come, first-serve basis. Write your name in the queue at the bar.

5:00-8:00 PM Simple, Beautiful, Scalable: A Night with Bing

Does your online startup need design insights? Are you working on ways to present info about complex networks to your clients and need to understand what makes visual sense and what doesn’t? Need to know how to scale your Web application as you hit critical mass? Find out the answers at this event!

Take this unique opportunity to chat over great drinks and food with TEDGlobal speaker and Bing interaction designer Manuel Lima (@mslima) about great design and how to best present complex information. If your startup is working on tech issues “under the hood,” take your drink and plate over to Principal Program Manager Michael Schechter (@mikeschechter) and learn more about how your startup can scale to its next high performance rollout – with new branding – and what pitfalls to avoid.

First hour will be welcome and networking (food, drink) and the last two will be meeting with the special guests. RSVP for this event here.

Baker’s Best Menu for our Bing Event:

• general tso chicken with sweet and spicy glaze, stir fried peppers and broccoli
• miso ginger glazed salmonwith grilled asian vegetables
•  vegetable fried rice
• asian salad with torn romaine lettuce, mandarin oranges, carrots, tomatoes,
• napa cabbage, wonton strips, and carrot ginger vinaigrette dressing

Coming up:

Register for MBBP’s upcoming Series ‘A’ Venture Investing in 2012; Will We Turn the Corner? Panel on February 2 from 4:00 to 5:30 PM. Moderated by: David Verrill Panelists: Braden Bohrmann, Dayna Balcome Grayson, Eric Hjerpe followed by a reception/networking in the Café. Registration closes January 25th.

We hope you stop by, grab a drink and connect!

See you in the Café,

Pardis

We founded the Venture Café two years ago with the goal of providing our innovation community a regular venue to meet, make new connections, and help each other realize our dreams. During this time, we have been fortunate to experience a tremendous amount of growth in attendance as well as support from many strong partner organizations.

Beginning this year, we have decided to launch the Contributor Model. The Venture Café will continue to be open to all members of the innovation community as our guests; however, going forward we ask regular attendees of the Venture Café to become “Contributors”. As a Contributor, you are expected to be champions of the Venture Café credo, as well as to be a productive connector, facilitator, and conversation-starter while in the café.

So, in a sense, the beer isn’t free. Instead, we’re asking you to “pay it forward“.

Here is how it will work:

- Visitors to the Café are invited to attend as guests up to three times. During these first three visits, guests can learn more about the Venture Café community and offerings.

- After three visits, individuals must become Contributors in order to attend the Café. The role of a Contributor is to support the mission of Venture Café by actively aiding others to pursue their innovative and entrepreneurial goals. An analysis of the attendance of the café has led us to conclude that we initially have space for only 120 Contributors. As a consequence, becoming a Contributor is selective, similar to applying to a university, and is by application (see Contributor Application). Applicants must also provide up to three references (these may be Venture Café Volunteers, Contributors, or well-known members of the innovation community).

- During the transition to this new model, past visitors to the café who have already visited more than three times will be provided one additional opportunity to visit as a guest before they must apply.

- In addition, visiting privileges at the Venture Café have been extended to members of certain innovation-focused partner organizations (Boston World Partnerships (connectors), C3, CIC, CommonAngels, Critical Mass, Dogpatch Labs, Greentown Labs, Mass Challenge (finalists and mentors), TechStars etc).

This new model is an ongoing experiment to improve Venture Café and over time, we will analyze the parameters we have set and tweak them as needed.

We hope that these changes will create a more focused, committed core of regular attendees while preserving plenty of space and opportunity for new participants in our innovation ecosystem to take advantage of the opportunities the café has to offer as a cross-roads and meeting place.

Thank you.

Respectfully,

Tim Rowe – Founder/Chairman of the Trustees
Chris Myles – Executive Director

Thursday, January 12, 3:00-8:00 PM: Venture Café in Session

3:00-5:00PM CommonAngels Open Office Hours

Have questions for angel investors? Looking for advice for you startup? Meet with CommonAngels team members Mike Dornbrook, Frank Edelblut, Joe O’Connor and Ron Rubbico to get the answers. CommonAngels members are current and former entrepreneurs and senior executives of technology companies who have a passion for working with great entrepreneurs and building new companies.

4:00-6:30 PM StartupBlvd/City of Boston Startup Challenge Info Table

Calling Entrepreneurs to Socialize Brick and Mortar Neighborhood Businesses!  The City of Boston’s Office of Business Development (OBD) is offering an open challenge to innovators who can help businesses acquire and retain customers using social media and mobile technology. In an effort to keep spending local in Boston’s neighborhoods, the City is seeking partners who will provide a low- or no-cost solution which will translate visibility of profiles on existing local directories, location-based services or social networks such as Facebook, Yelp, and Twitter into in-store visits and transactions by leveraging reputation, trust, or loyalty rather than visits, price, or discounts. Initial Applications Due: January 31, 2012 . Check out StartupBlvd for more details.

5:30–6:30 PM City of Cambridge Resource Table

The City of Cambridge is interested in supporting local entrepreneurs grow and stay in Cambridge. Sit down with an Economic Development staff member to learn more about what resources are available to support Cambridge start ups and discuss ideas on growing the local entrepreneurial community.

Coming up:

Register for next week’s Simple, Beautiful, Scalable: A night with Bing. Does your online startup need design insights? Are you working on ways to present info about complex networks to your clients and need to understand what makes visual sense and what doesn’t? Need to know how to scale your Web application as you hit critical mass? Find out the answers at this event!

Register for MBBP’s upcoming Series ‘A’ Venture Investing in 2012; Will We Turn the Corner? Panel on February 2 from 4:00 to 5:30 PM. Moderated by: David Verrill Panelists: Braden Bohrmann, Dayna Balcome Grayson, Eric Hjerpe followed by a reception/networking in the Café. Registration closes January 25th.

We hope you stop by, grab a drink and connect!

See you in the Café,

Pardis

Thursday, January 5, 3:00-8:00 PM: Venture Café in Session

4:00-5:00 PM Bain Capital Ventures Office Hours

Come by and ask a Bain Capital Ventures Associate or Partner key questions or bench test your business plan in the CriticalMass space here at the CIC! Apply for a 15 minute spot here.

4:00 – 5:30 PM Let’s Talk: Your Personal Finance Checklist for Startups

Everyone wants to be a founder or work for a startup for the upside that lies ahead. But are you worried about only being able to eat ramen? Do you need to dig into your 401k savings or max out credit cards? Have some burning personal finance questions regarding your life in a start-up? Come to our upcoming event this Thursday for insights from financial advisor Adrian Wong from RGL Group in Morgan Stanley Smith Barney with a focus working with start-ups and emerging enterprises.

In addition to addressing questions from our audience, Adrian will lead an informal discussion on the importance of knowing where your own personal money is to avoid financial ruin while working in a start-up. Register here for this event.

4:00-5:30 PM Office Hours with MTDC

This week we welcome back one of our partners to the Café– the Massachusetts Technology Development Corporation – for a series of bi-weekly office hours. This week stop by and chat with Jerry Bird, Senior Vice President of MTDC. He will be at a table in the Café taking meetings on a first-come, first-serve basis. Sign up to meet with Jerry by adding your name to the list located at the bar.

5:00 – 6:00 PM Have a Beer on Bain Capital Ventures!

Fun fact! Bain Capital Ventures sponsors the beer from 5-6pm every other week in the Café!

5:00 – 7:00 PM Office Hours with Kyle Alspach of Boston Business Journal

Stop by and meet Kyle Alspach, the Startups & Venture Capital editor at the Boston Business Journal. Share a bit about what you’re working on and learn about the BBJ’s Startups & Venture Capital Daily, a blog and daily e-mail that covers Boston area tech startups and venture investors.

We hope you stop by, grab a drink and connect!

See you in the Café,

Pardis

Hi everyone! I hope that you are having a lovely holiday season. After taking a break for the holidays, the Café is open this week for mingling and making connections.

We’ve been hard at work reflecting on our past efforts and challenging ourselves to experiment with our model in ways that could bring Venture Cafe to the next level, so please stay tuned for updates!

Thursday, December 29, 3:00-8:00 PM: Venture Café in Session

Recently, the Venture Café  team added the number of times you have come to the Café to your name tag. This can be a great icebreaker and also a way to reach out to the new members of the community.  Next time you are in the Café I encourage you to reach out to someone you see has a “1″ on their name tag, ask “How can I help?” and share your Café experiences with them.

The Café will also be starting a new e-newsletter in the new year and adding more community content to the blog, allowing for more interactions in and out of the Café. We look forward to continuing to facilitate meaningful connections for all of us within the innovation community!

As a reminder, if you haven’t already, you can connect to the Venture Café  LinkedIn group for interactions outside the café . Further, we encourage you to visit the Venture Café homepage (login on the lower right) to review your history of visits to the café  and to connect your LinkedIn profile so your photo can appear on your virtual nametag. For folks interested in seeing what is coming up in the Café, don’t forget to take a look at our calendar on the right of the page.

We hope that you stop by the Café this week to help us celebrate the new year and connect!

See you in the Café,

Pardis

As a reminder, if you haven’t already, you can connect to the Venture Café LinkedIn group for interactions outside the cafe. Further, we encourage you to visit the Venture Cafe homepage (login on the lower right) to review your history of visits to the cafe and to connect your LinkedIn profile so your photo can appear on your virtual name tag in the Venture Café.

Lastly, we want you to know that suggestions and event requests always welcomed – we are here for you so please give us your feedback.

We hope you have a happy holiday season and we will see you on December 29th!

See you in the Café,

Pardis

Thursday, December 15, 3:00 – 8:00 PM: Venture Café in Session

3:00-6:00 PM TCN Upstart Roundtable with Paul Sonderegger of Endeca

Come meet and hear from Paul Sonderegger (@PaulSonderegger), Chief Strategist at Endeca Technologies (@Endeca). Learn about Paul’s experience with Endeca, the leading provider of business intelligence and customer experience management software that helps guide people to better decisions (See video here). To sign up for this month’s Roundtable, click here.

5:30-7:30 PM Basic Video Lighting Techniques by Pixability