Back in November 2006 Kongregate took the stage at STIRR 1.8 to tell the world about the coming casual games revolution. After launch, I think we all blamed Kongregate for hours of lost time playing games like Desktop Tower Defense and the Fancy Pants Adventures. Our congrats to Jim and Emily on Kongregate being acquired by GameStop.
If you were with us back in March of 2007 you may remember Metaweb came out of Stealth on the STIRR stage. Our heartfelt congrats to the Metaweb team on the Google acquisition! We look forward to what comes from the combination of Metaweb’s semantic technology and Google’s scale.
A big note of thanks to our first FoundersTable sponsor of 2010. FirstRound Capital was gracious enough to help sponsor STIRR in 2010. As soon as we get everyone’s schedule worked out we’ll have a special announcement for the first FoundersTable of 2010.
We’re honored to have a huge influx of new applications, wow. If you’ve signed up, we’ve got you on the list. We’re not going to be able to have everyone attend the first event, but we will have multiple events through the year.
In the meantime, if you’re a 1st time entrepreneur, the FoundersInstitute is accepting applications for their next Bay Area session. We’re not affiliated with FoundersInstitute, but we are fans of Adeo’s work with TheFunded and like what he’s doing with the new incubator model. Let us know what you think.
Wishing everyone a terrific Holiday Season and looking forward to seeing all of you in 2010.
Much to our chagrin it looks like the FoundersTable form had been broken ever since we upgraded wordpress. If you tried to apply before, head on over now to the new shiny Google Docs form: http://stirr.net/founders-table/
Our heartfelt congrats to Aaron, Matt, Poornima and the entire Mint team and all the investors (FirstRound, Felicis Ventures, SoftTech VC, Shasta Ventures, et all). Aaron and Sanford crossed paths back when Mint was still a prototype on Aaron’s laptop. Aaron asked, “Do you think this is fundable?” Sanford replied, “Are you kidding?? Cancel your plans, you’re coming to dinner in two nights”. We invited Arron to FoundersTable to meet Josh Koppleman (FirstRound) and FirstRound ended up investing shortly afterwards (along with a few other angels we tipped off – nods to Aydin Senkut, Jeff Clavier and more). It was our honor to help in what little way we could. But all the credit goes to Mint for building a solid revenue-generating company with amazing growth. A well deserved exit and a huge win for Intuit. We wish everyone continued success.
That makes the 3rd 4th FoundersTable alum with a healthy exit (PowerSet, JotSpot, StumbleUpon, Mint) and we always look forward to having them back to future dinners as Vets.
If you’d like to apply for a spot at the table, please fill out the form here: FoundersTable Application and we hope to see you at a future dinner.
==PITCH 2009: Napkin startup competition==
Michael Moritz of SEQUOIA Capital is listening.
http://pitch.women2.org
DEADLINE: April 10, 2009 (firm deadline)
Do you have the world’s next big idea? Here’s your chance to PITCH.
Michael Moritz (Sequoia) is listening! Put it on a paper napkin!
Women 2.0’s third-annual Startup Competition will provide your alpha,
beta, or prototype-stage startup with exposure to early stage
investors. Our judging panel includes investors and experienced
startup executives who will provide valuable written feedback on your
business.
NOTE: *only ONE of the founding members needs to be female to qualify.
HUNDREDS of submissions will receive valuable feedback from the
judging panel of investors and experienced startup executives.
FIVE startups will be chosen to pitch live on Pitch Night: May 7th, 2009.
ONE winning startup gets a meeting with legendary investor Michael
Moritz from Sequoia Capital in addition to free office space, legal
services, marketing support, PR support, and more – everything youneed
to win with your new idea.
Entering the competition is easy. Just fill out information about your
startup online, record a 2-minute video pitch, and snail mail us a
cocktail napkin with your business plan scribbled on it. Deadline to
submit your startup is April 10th, 2009 (firm deadline) —time to get
started!
Are you in? http://pitch.women2.org
Andrew Chen writes a great blog and recently posted a good list of some bay area entrepreneurs to follow on twitter.
The list includes our friends and some fomer STIRR speakers: David Weekly (pbwiki), Scott Rafer (lookery), Ted Rheingold (dogster) and more.
You can find the full list here [Futuristic Play by Andrew Chen]
And you can find the US STIRR team on twitter here: @heysanford, @danarkind, @seanness
After over 2 and a half years of producing high quality monthly events, the Bay Area STIRR team has been taking a long deserved break from public events for a little while. FoundersTable is still ongoing and we are accepting PitchLab applications so please feel free to apply for both.
In the meantime there are two other events you may wish to check out. The first is TheFunded’s CEO unconference and VC/Founder events. If you’re not already a member of TheFunded don’t hesitate, sign-up now. Since Adeo has moved to the bay area he has been running very high quality events (best ratios of VC to entrepreneur and the highest rated VCs only). The second is Startup2Startup. The Startup2Startup dinner format doesn’t really focus on solving operational/strategy issues like FoundersTable, but it does attract a lively crowd and a few of the talks are insightful. Both options are great networking opportunities.
==PITCH 2009: Napkin startup competition==
Michael Moritz of SEQUOIA Capital is listening.
http://pitch.women2.org
DEADLINE: April 10, 2009 (firm deadline)
Do you have the world’s next big idea? Here’s your chance to PITCH.
Michael Moritz (Sequoia) is listening! Put it on a paper napkin!
Women 2.0’s third-annual Startup Competition will provide your alpha,
beta, or prototype-stage startup with exposure to early stage
investors. Our judging panel includes investors and experienced
startup executives who will provide valuable written feedback on your
business.
NOTE: *only ONE of the founding members needs to be female to qualify.
Women 2.0 Pitch 2009
A warm thank you to everyone in the STIRR family for a terrific 2008. Bay Area FoundersTable and Salon events kick off again in Feb 2009 and we look forward to seeing you then.