Announcing the Fall 2008 Season of Entrepreneurship
The LaunchMemphis founding team is pleased to announce our Fall 2008 Season of Entrepreneurship. This Fall we are putting together 4 events to develop our entrepreneurial community. Like every season we hope to organize dynamic, unique, and meaningful experiences for the community, and while all the events are important there are two highlights that fit this mold definitely.
1) Mark your calendar on September 18th, 2008 for your opportunity to interact with Sarah Lacy (http://www.sarahlacy.com/), a tech entrepreneurship reporter for BusinessWeek and Yahoo’s Tech Ticker. She is the recent author of Once You’re Lucky, Twice You’re Good: The Rebirth of Silicon Valley and the Rise of Web 2.0. If you are technologist, entrepreneur, new media player, blogger, or other interested party, please join us for this special party complete with food, drink, and DJ (and some book signing). You’ll meet and share ideas in a fun and open atmosphere and brush elbows with those daring to launch a new venture — plus you can meet Sarah Lacy. While the event is free, RSVP is required for attendance. Send a quick message to TechFuel@launchmemphis.com.
2) Mark your calendar for November 7th and 8th, 2008 for Memphis BarCamp. Yes LaunchMemphis is organizing the “Un-Conference” for the community. For those that haven’t heard of this program, BarCamp is an international network of user generated conferences — open, participatory workshop-events, whose content is provided by participants. More information will be announced shortly, but, like Startup Weekend, we don’t think you will want to miss this.
In addition to these two events, we’ll host a Startup Weekend Reunion on August 7th, 2008 and we are co-organizing a luncheon with the Leadership Academy. For details on these events and all our events be sure to go to this page on our website.
We hope you enjoyed your summer and invite you to join us for another series of great events to develop our entrepreneurial community.
Evaluating the Success of the Investment Forum
Recently, more than 50 people came together for the LaunchMemphis Early Stage Investment Forum. As with any event, it’s important to define the metrics for success and evaluate how the event compared to those metrics. Here are some metrics and results:
1. Community Involvement - with more than 50 people present, this was clearly met. Out of 34 applications, 20 were accepted,,so this number was intentionally limited. Of the 50 people, roughly half were investors (including institutional investors and individual investors). Almost all of the institutional investors in Memphis were there, although a few couldn’t make it at the last minute. And, of course, a summary of the event would not be complete without mentioning the involvement of the FedEx Institute of Technology, where the event was held. Lastly, the Commercial Appeal covered the event, with a reporter spending nearly an entire day at the Institute.
2. Connections - While some people clearly knew each other, most did not. Using the formula (N^2 - N) / 2, there was a potential for 1,225 connections to be made. Since many of the investors already knew each other, the actual number is probably closer to 750. A large number of these connections were more than fleeting moments, but more on that in a moment.
3. Awareness of Entrepreneurial Environment - As we spoke with investors at the forum, and as we reviewed the surveys they completed, the opinion was almost universal that they were impressed with at least some of the ideas at the forum. Many investors commented that they felt the overall quality of the entrepreneurs was superb and surpassed their expectations. The awareness that Memphis has so many people working on ideas was, and is, critical to the success of LaunchMemphis, not to mention the Memphis community at large.
4. Relationships - While some connections were fleeting ‘nice to meet you’ moments, many have become deeper connections. We are aware of at least 20 follow-on meetings that have occurred as a result of entrepreneurs and investors meeting each other at the forum (if you were there and have had follow-on meetings, please let us know!). We can’t know what these will lead to, but we do know that this was one of our most critical success factors, and we are thrilled with this result.
5. Feedback - All of the entrepreneurs received invaluable feedback from the investors. Each entrepreneur received a report of how they were rated by the investors in six categories and received a list of investors that wanted to have follow-up conversations. Metric met.
6. Plan for Moving Forward - One of the key aspects of the forum was providing a platform for everyone involved (investors, entrepreneurs, and LaunchMemphis organizers) to discuss how to improve the current environment. We held an open meeting/roundtable discussion on what investors were looking for, what entrepreneurs needed, and how to engage individual, “Angel,” investors. We believe that this engaging conversation needs to continue, but we were thrilled to have so many people engaged in the conversation, and getting everyone talking was the first step.
7. Direct Investment - For investment forums with a long history, this is the success metric that matters most. However, as organizers, we said from the beginning that it was not our metric of choice for the first year. It is too early to determine whether the connections made will lead to investment. We do know that dialog is underway that could lead to eventual investment and that at least is very positive (again, if you are one of the people who was there, please keep us posted). In speaking with some people who were less familiar with the process of investing in startups, we found a potential misconception around the notion that an entrepreneur might walk away with a check. This was never expected and almost never happens at any investment forum. What does happen is that a conversation follows that can lead to such a transaction. Don’t get us wrong–we do hope that someone gets funded, and that is a goal. However, not having a company funded does not mean the event was not a success.
We want to thank everyone that attended, and to especially thank our sponsors, the Tennessee Technology Development Council, Innova, and FedEx Institute of Technology.
We are still hearing about meetings that are going on and many entrepreneurs are hard at work to get their ideas further along. We firmly believe that great things will come from this event, and, as we plan for more in the future, we look forward to providing a solid foundation for entrepreneurs and investors to connect.
