Thanks to everyone who came out to our final Web Innovators Group meeting last week. I heard great feedback, especially about our three main dish presenters who really wow’ed the crowd that evening. In the blogosphere, Greg Peverill-Conti was “definitely impressed with what [main dish FlipKey] had to say” and “certainly some stuff in there that was.. cool” with iiProperty’s demo. Another main dish, Lemonade, won Barb Heffner’s heart. And side dish presenter and high school student, Steven Bao of Student Concourse, got a warm round of applause as the “favorite entrepreneur of the night” by many, including Scott Kirsner.
As I noted during the evening, this November event marked the two year anniversary of including demo’ing startups at the Web Innovators Group events. From small gatherings then in a Kendall Sq bar to last week’s filling of the Grand Ballroom in the Royal Sonesta, the group has certainly grown up over the past twenty-four months. A special thanks goes to all of the 85 presenting companies which have demo’ed (some of whose logos are included in the slide below), and a congratulations to the nine (that I know of) which have either received venture funding or been acquired in this timeframe.
We’re just a week away from the last Web Innovators Group meeting of 2007 on November 6th starting at 6:30pm. We have another great lineup of startups demo’ing at the event, and so I wanted highlight them in a blog post. The main presentations to the entire crowd will start at 7pm, thirty minutes after we open the Grand Ballroom at the Royal Sonesta in
Following those presentations, each of our side dish demonstrators will have an opportunity to give a quick 30-second overview of their service to the audience followed by a showcase of their companies at tables spread throughout the periphery of the room during the unstructured networking portion of the evening:
As always, everyone who is interested in web and mobile innovation is encouraged to attend the free event. Please RSVP (and find additional details) on the event page (http://webinno15.eventbrite.com/) if you plan to join us so we are able to print name tags and appropriately size the room.
At every WebInno event, we’ve had a bit of down the downtime between main dish presenters. This provides a great opportunity of just a few moments for others to share what they’re doing and ask for the community’s help. So for this upcoming event on November 6th, I want to experiment with adding “nibbles” – extremely quick announcements by individuals or companies to the entire crowd.
Perhaps you’re a technical founder looking for a business partner? Or maybe you just launched a new private beta site and you’re looking for beta users? Or potentially you’re seeking a specific partnership from a type of company that may be in the room (or someone in the room may be able to make an intro)? Regardless of the announcement, if you would genuinely benefit from crowdsourcing (and not just using the air-time for a blatant commercial), then a “nibble” just might do. This open call is meant to help further connect people who can help each other and provide the entire crowd with a window into activities within the community.
If you’re interested in participating in this test exercise, please email the exact three-sentence announcement/question which you’d like to broadcast to “nibble at webinnovatorsgroup dot com.” If selected, you will have exactly fifteen second to make this exact announcement to the crowd in between main dish presentations. Unlike I do for the main and side dish presenters, my apologies, I won’t be able to respond to every single request personally. And also in contrast to the other presenters, individuals can be from any type of company – self-funded startup, VC-backed, large firm or agency, etc.
Thanks everyone – looking forward to seeing you at the event next Tuesday night.
In the past few months, I’ve begun a series of WebInno Dinner Groups – gatherings of a dozen or so entrepreneurs and operators focused on a specific topic who want to connect to discuss and share experiences within their domain. In contrast to the larger bimonthly large WebInno events, these are smaller and much more intimate sessions with an opportunity for in-depth discussion. The first two dinners were devoted to the topics “Widgets and Advertising” and the “Intersection of
The next WebInno Dinner Group is going to be focused on the topic “Virtual Items and Virtual Worlds.” If this sounds like a gathering which you would want to participate, please reach out to me (david at webinnovatorsgroup dot com) sharing a bit of your relevant background and interest. Depending on response and availability, I’ll then organize an evening for us to get together in upcoming weeks.
As I mentioned at WebInno14, the next Web Innovators Group event will be held on Tuesday November 6th. It will be the last session in 2007, so it’s not one to be missed. The location will be announced shortly (likely Cambridge Royal Sonesta again, but we’re currently exploring other options).
If you plan on attending, please RSVP on our dedicated registration page.
Thanks to everyone who came out to WebInno14 last Monday night. Our not-so-official attendance record was set that evening with over 400 people coming out to watch the main and side dish demos, as well as mix with the as-always-energetic crowd.
Dave Evan’s called the event “in a word, amazing.” Barbara Heffner summarized by saying “Web Innovators Group rocks the Royal Sonesta.” Wade Roush said there was a “rich stew at [the] Web Innovators bash.” And Greg Peverill-Conti said WebInno “just keep[s] getting bigger and better.”
Of course, everyone had their favorite demo’ing companies – you can read all of the play-by-play reviews here here here and here.
And in case you weren’t able to attend, Scott Kirsner produced a short video compiling the highlights from the presentations:
Looking forward to seeing everyone at the next event on November 6th.
With a little more than one week away from the next Web Innovators Group event on September 10th, I wanted highlight our featured startups which are demonstrating that evening. We have a great line-up for the event which will begin at 6:30pm in the Grand Ballroom at the Royal Sonesta in
There are three main dish presenters who will take the stage for a six minute demo of their service to the entire crowd:
Following those presentations, each of our side dish demonstrators will have an opportunity to give a quick 30-second overview of their service to the audience followed by a showcase of their companies at tables spread throughout the periphery of the room during the unstructured networking portion of the evening:
I am excited that among our presenting entrepreneurs this time, some are successful serial (co-)founders like Alan Phillips (uLocate) and Robin Chase (ZipCar), and others are energetic first-time entrepreneurs. Plus, many of our presenting companies will be launching their service (or new aspects to it) just a matter of days before WebInno.
This post is the second of a set of featured WebInno blog entries that profile companies which have demonstrated either as a main or side dishes at past Web Innovators Group events. These “WebInno Recall” posts further highlight startups and their founders by providing a set of info which isn’t typically found on a company’s website or elsewhere in the blogosphere. They also provide a little additional exposure for these emerging startups to those WebInno members who may have missed them at a previous event, as well as an update on new developments for those who did have a chance to see them in the past.
Following the first Recall profile on Arlington,MA-based startup Isabont, this second one features Boston-based hyperlocal search service, Citysquares. I recently asked one of the Citysquares founders, Ben Saren, a few questions:
Could you provide a brief overview of the service?
Citysquares.com provides comprehensive, hyper local content for people seeking local businesses, resources, and other types of information for their locale. Citysquares provides local businesses with an opportunity to reach out to a highly targeted local online audience through its highly trafficked website. Local advertisers are able to fully customize, personalize and track the performance of their Citysquares.com advertising campaigns. The next version of our site will also be developed as a licensable platform that will be sold in other markets.
What is the founding story? What was the inspiration behind your idea?
Bob Leland and I [Ben Saren] have worked together and have been friends since early 2004 when we worked together at my previous company. The idea for Citysquares.com was conceived out of pure need. Over the span of a couple years we grew exceedingly frustrated with the lack of accurate, online, hyper-local information for the neighborhoods in which we lived, worked, and played in. Once we both realized we shared the same frustrations with the local online experience we also realized we’d identified an opportunity. In August of 2005 we started vetting the idea with local consumers, friends, family, and local businesses. Sixty days later we launched our first proof of concept.
What is the basic idea or premise of the company? What problem are you trying to solve?
Citysquares.com provides local businesses with an opportunity to reach out to a highly targeted local online audience through its highly trafficked, consumer facing website. Businesses are able to fully customize their Citysquares.com advertising campaign with SEO tools, content management, and soon content syndication tools, email newsletters, video, classifieds, and much more. Users are able to easily find this content, rate businesses, review them, and contribute other kinds of content.
What is innovative about the idea or the approach?
We’re taking a bottoms-up approach to building an online community based on neighborhood and community locales. We believe in digital delivery and analog relationships. While 50% of local merchants have websites, they are mostly brochure-sites. The 50% that don’t have websites are ready for an online presence. Citysquares.com proposes to effectively become their online presence, by providing rich, comprehensive content that they can easily update and manage on their own and that is targeted to a relevant local online audience.
How do you plan to monetize your service?
Our revenue model is advertising based. All local businesses receive a free profile on Citysquares.com, including their business name, address, phone number, and interactive map. Businesses can upgrade their profile to include much more about their business including description of their business, hours of operation, product or service offerings, special offers to consumers, pictures, and more. Advertisers pay an annual fixed fee. We also offer sponsored display advertising. The next version of Citysquares.com will allow for other revenue streams and will be built as a platform that can be licensed in other markets.
What are some notable accomplishments since you presented at WebInno? How has the company changed and developed since then?
We were a side-dish at the November 2006 WebInno. Since then, we rolled out several new features for advertisers and users. We also closed our Series A financing from eCoast Angel Group, moved into a new office at TechSpace Boston, grown to seven full time employees, and have begun building the new and improved Citysquares.com and its platform.
What can you share about the company that isn’t immediately apparent from the website?
We have a socially responsible mission, in that we intend to provide online exposure and value for locally owned businesses who are struggling to compete with the growing presence of national chains and big box retailers. As a result of this national trend, small businesses are teaming up like never before to ensure that the economic benefits of local business are more widely known, and therefore embraced among consumers. We’ve made this the core of our mission and we intend to make it more apparent.
How did you find your WebInno demo’ing experience?
Perhaps the biggest benefit of being featured at WebInno was the validation we received from the numerous people who stopped by to talk with us. Validation and affirmation, as a boot-strapping startup, is immensely valuable. WebInno reminded us that we were on the right path and that Citysquares.com is, in fact, a useful solution that addresses a clear problem that people can strongly relate to. WebInno also helped us fine-tune our pitch to users, businesses, and investment opportunities. Additionally, we made many valuable connections at WebInno that have brought us further down the road towards success.
Today we are exactly halfway between our last month’s large-group WebInno event and the next one coming up after Labor Day on Monday September 10th. July’s WebInno13 event was well attended – especially by some of the prolific bloggers in our community. It was great to see many people provide coverage of the evening, so I wanted to highlight a few of the posts.
First, as he’s done for past couple events, Greg Peverill-Conti provided his predictions about how he anticipated liking/not-liking the demonstrators, followed up by a recap post examining how spot-on those forecasts were. The big surprise for him was side-dish Zync, “I was pretty wowed by these guys. They’ve been busy and it really shows.”
Sol Nassi provided a nice round-up of his impressions of the demonstrating companies.
Summing up the entire night, Dave at the 93South blog commented, “It was an excellent turnout at the webinno13 event last night at the Royal Sonesta Hotel Cambridge. As you can see by the picture above, this is no longer a small demonstration event but a small conference for the local web 2.0 tech industry. I have not seen a published number yet but the crowd was well attended by start-ups, job seekers and a large contingent of VCs.” To him, the “surprise of the night was
I really liked Suzi Edwards’ perspective of the event in her recap post, “Monday night, I attended a great geek gala in
Finally, for those of you who still occasionally open a physical media publication, in this week’s Mass High Tech,
It’s beneficial to see the recognition for what everyone in the web and mobile community together has created here in town. Looking forward to the upcoming WebInno14 event next month.
As of this past weekend, we launched a new live version of the Web Innovators Group website. Besides a fresh updated look and feel to it, there are two new feature sets which should be helpful for the WebInno community.
First, the free-form wiki for managing the registration for events has been replaced with a more sophisticated dedicated application. Now it should be more user-friendly to sign up for an event and people won’t run into issues with the wiki being locked up with heavy traffic.
Second and more importantly, we have now added a free job board to the WebInno site. This page is aimed to become a central location for web and mobile jobs (especially at startups) in the greater
