If you haven’t joined us before, STIRR’s ‘Hack’ talks are typically short 3-5 minute vignette’s about hard lessons turned into success from entrepreneurs who have felt the pain. Each time with give the Hack format to a new speaker it morphs a little to fit the topic. This time the VC’s turned it into more of a “do’s and don’ts” talk based on pitches they have received in the past. We encouraged stories of previous failures/deals they regret passing on, and there’s a hidden gem in Jeff Clavier’s talk right at the end: see if you can catch what deal he missed before he really groked the power of social networks a few years ago (hint: the company was sold to Yahoo).

Adeo Ressi (The Funded) and I spoke offline before the event and the stories he has to share are arresting and should be shared. He didn’t get into any detail in his talk, but we’ll invite him back to speak privately in the future so he can get deeper into the topic. For DealHacks, instead of a hack, Adeo riffed on the two VC talks before him.

Beyond the talks the crowd was great. There was a mix of pre-launch (Involver, Lipzoo, etc.), early stage (Mint, Satisfaction, Watercooler, Mixbook), post acquisition entrepreneurs (Mybloglog, etc). A huge round of thanks to everyone who made it special. If you have photos from the event, please tag them “stirr” and “dealhacks”.

Words of thanks to:

• First Round Capital for buying the first round of drinks (thanks Rob!)
• Sun Microsystems our Gold Sponsor for the evening. If you run a startup, check out their Startup Essentials program.
• Jeff Clavier, Rob Hayes and Adeo Ressi for great insights and keeping the crowd smiling.

Shout outs:

• JobScore has launched (run by STIRR co-founder Dan Arkind). It’s free and takes a bunch of pain out of the candidate sourcing process. Dan and the team have done a killer job, check it out.

Videos:

Jeff Clavier, SoftTechVC

Rob Hayes, FirstRound Capital

Adeo Ressi, The Funded

Photos from the event:

DealHacks is SOLD OUT. Please join us next time. Add STIRR to your RSS reader or subscribe by email using the links to the right.

STIRR Brings Back the Startup Mixer for 2008 with a Twist.

Join other founding teams for STIRR’s first Startup Mixer of 2008.

STIRR Celebrates It’s 3rd year with a twist on the FounderHacks series. This time we bring you two of the best early stage investors and a terrific founder for contrast in ‘Deal Hacks’. Each speaker will be sharing personal stories from the the investment side of the fence.

If you haven’t joined us before, STIRR brings together founding teams of startups to connect and forge relationships. (This isn’t a pitch session and please don’t attend if your only goal is to find funding.) We feature great short-talks from notable founders, investors, and key thought leaders around the globe. This isn’t a sit-down event.

On Stage:

Adeo Ressi, The Funded

Adeo is a serial entrepreneur. His most recent project The Funded still creates quite a stir on Sand Hill Road. Before The Funded, Adeo founded and sold casual gaming site Game Trust to RealNetworks. Adeo also serves on the board of the X Prize Foundation. More about The Funded and the 9 months of mystery after it’s launch in this article from Wired.

Jeff Clavier, SoftTechVC (Jeff is on the Right) – Photo courtesy of Brian Solis

Jeff Clavier is one of the most prolofic investors in Web 2.0, with over 40 deals executed in the last 4 years. After investing as a business angel for over 3 years, Jeff launched his $12M seed fund at the
TechCrunch40 conference in Sept 2007. He has since invested in 18 startups in social media, communities, search and discovering, gaming and advertising. A (too) frequent speaker at industry conferences, Jeff works and lives in Palo Alto with his wife and 2 children, and can be followed on twitter at twitter.com/JeffClavier.

Rob Hayes, FirstRoundCapital (Rob is on the left) – Photo courtesy of Duncan Davidson

Rob joined First Round Capital in 2006. Since joining he has led investments in companies including Mint.com, Xobni, and Get Satisfaction. Rob came to First Round Capital from Omidyar Network where he was their first venture investor. He led most of Omidyar Network’s initial venture capital deals and later built and ran the technology investing group.

This event kicks off STIRR’s 3rd year. We’re celebrating by returning to the site that reignited the Bay Area demo+mixer scene back in early 2006: Bistro 412 (formerly F&A’s). The venue has a beautiful back patio and we’ve reserved the whole space just for STIRR and we’ll be feeding everyone as usual.

Tickets:

http://dealhacks.eventbrite.com

Who should attend?

* Founding Teams of high-growth Internet, Mobile, Enterprise, Software related BioTech and Cleantech
* VCs
* Qualified Angels
* Top level engineering talent
* Press (must qualify for pass: press@stirr.net)

Some of the ticket, venue and food cost have been graciously underwritten by:

Sun Microsystems
http://www.sun.com/startup

Tickets for the event:

http://dealhacks.eventbrite.com

]]> http://stirr.net/2008/04/30/dealhacks-startup-mixer-may-14th/feed/ 2 http://stirr.net/2007/12/26/soiree-2-the-writeups/ http://stirr.net/2007/12/26/soiree-2-the-writeups/#comments Wed, 26 Dec 2007 07:46:00 +0000 admin http://www.stirr.net/posts/show/130

Photos and writeups of Soiree2 have been coming in:

STIRR Swings into the Holiday Season “STIRR has outdone themselves, yet again, with this year’s elegant and stylish Holiday Soiree in San Francisco. It summoned the a-listers and the up-and-coming entrepreneurs alike, and everything in between. All adorned suits and gowns – who knew geeks cleaned up so well. Champagne flowed, chocolate paired, conversations planted clusters of entrepreneurs in their place, and Lavay Smith decorated the ambiance with sultry swing.”

Stay Classy San Francisco: “Can a city go, in a year, from geek to chic? Unlikely. But consider this: A year ago, Stirr held its holiday mixer in the Exploratorium, a children’s museum full of science exhibits. This year, the place was the Julia Morgan Ballroom in the Merchants’ Exchange Building, right on the California Street cable-car line. Last night, as I made my way in, I was thinking to myself, “2007, or 1907?” Alas, the aura of gilded-era chic didn’t last much past the elevator ride up to the 15th floor. The first person I met was ubiquitous egoblogger Robert Scoble. Check out our gallery for pictures of actually-not-bad swing dancing — Stirr cofounder Sanford Barr, above, showed off his moves — and people in formal attire playing Wii.”

Julia Morgan Ballroom Elevates Startup Scene Thanks to STIRR.: “Sanford Barr, Sean Ness, and Dan Arkind have outdone themselves. The amazing organization of guests and kind hearted sponsors benefitted as well by mingling with the big personas that attended such as Robert Scoble and Brian Solis. The special details that kept on coming throughout the night were hors d’oerves from Chef Paul, Lavay Smith performing, and magician Robert Strong. It was obvious that everyone enjoyed their evening with these special touches that were promised and delivered by the thoughtful men of STIRR. Gold Sponsors Felicis Ventures, Gabriel Venture Partners, and Sun Microsystems made this event possible and I for one appreciate their support. After a night like last night, I would have to go way back to my college Prom in Manhattan to compare the venue.”

It sold out in under 6 days. All told we had about 420 people attend and a knockout time. There are additional photos from the event from Brian Solis, Alex Ho and if you have more, send us a note to ‘photos’ at this domain. Wishing everyone a terrific New Year. More photos after the fold:

Photos courtesy of Lane Hartwell, Valleywag and Brian Solis

Here’s the important stuff:

*) Dress up, this is semi-formal

*) Bring cards (raffles for 3 nice bottles of wine from Bottlenotes.com and one Sun server)

*) Wear shoes you can dance in

*) Show up at 6:30pm for Champagne and Chocolate – see below

*) Wine and Champagne are free until we run out, the rest of the bar is $cash and they don’t accept credit (atms down in the lobby if needed).

*) Our Soiree isn’t a sit down dinner but there will be plenty of freshly cooked of food both passed and stationed and nice tables and places to sit with a group if you’d like to. Chef Paul promises he’ll be producing fresh plates of yumminess out of the oven until 9:30pm. This isn’t re-heated catering faire, Paul is cooking on site.

Schedule:

6:30pm Champagne Reception by Bottlenotes.com with Chocolate from Charles Chocolates

7:15pm Brief Swing Dance lesson with Robert Strong

7:30pm Lavay Smith and the Red Hot Skillet Lickers Performance

8:30pm Brief Talks

8:40pm The Comedy Magic of Robert Strong (www.strongentertainment.com)

8:55pm Raffle drawings (Sun Server, 3 bottles of wine)

9:00pm Lavay Smith Set 2

10:00pm Dancing DJ’d by Pandora.com

12:00pm Event Ends

Recommended Parking Lots:

St. Mary’s Square Garage Richard Fehr

c/o Parking Concepts Inc. 415.956.8106, 415.433.4724 Fax

651 California Street

(between Grant & Kearny)

San Francisco, CA 94108

Each 30 minutes $2.00

All Day $24.00

Weekday Rates, After 6:00PM $10.00

Weekend Rates, All Day $10.00

Portsmouth Square Garage Roger Lee

733 Kearny Street (Between Clay & Washington) 415.982.6353

San Francisco, CA

Weekday & Weekend Rates

0-1 hours, $2.00 1-2 hours, $3.00

2-3 hours, $5.00 3-4 hours, $8.00

4-5 hours, $11.00 5-6 hours, $14.00

6-7 hours, $17.00 7-8 hours, $20.00

8-24 hours, 24.00

Between 6:00PM-4:00AM $8.00

Bank of America Center Ti Calija/Daron Kapeghian/Chi Wang

c/o Shorenstein Realty Services 415.433.4787, 415.433.7101 Fax

555 California Street (Enter on Pine Street)

between Montgomery & Kearny)

San Francisco, CA 94104

Each 20 minutes $4.00

All Day, Weekday Rate $33.00

Weekday Rates, After 5:00PM $10.00

Weekend Rates, 24 Hours $12.00

Embarcadero Center Parking Jeff Ogle and Alfred Chin

c/o AMPCO System Parking 415.772.0671

One Embarcadero (Between Battery & Clay)

Two Embarcadero (Between Clay & Davis)

Three Embarcadero (Between Clay & Drumm)

Four Embarcadero (Between Clay & Drumm)

San Francisco, CA 94111

Weekday Rates, Each 20 minutes $2.75

All Day, Weekday Rate $27.50

Evenings, 5:00PM-3:00AM $2.50 per hour

Weekend Rates, 10:00AM-3:00AM $2.50 per hour

Evan Williams, Jonathan Abrams and Michael Cerda shared their insights at STIRR’s FounderHacks III.

There were over 300 in attendance. Over 75% founding teams of early stage startups.

Here are the talks:

Ev Williams “Just Say No”

Jonathan Abrams “Common Wisdom sometimes isn’t”

Michael Cerda “Stick to your DNA”

The good folks over at Found|Read wrote about the talks here.

Kudos to Chef Paul for catering and the STIRR Armored Door Team for keeping the flow moving smoothly.

]]> http://stirr.net/2007/11/16/the-talks-from-founderhacks-iii/feed/ 0 http://stirr.net/2007/11/01/founderhacks-iii-nov-13th-san-francisco/ http://stirr.net/2007/11/01/founderhacks-iii-nov-13th-san-francisco/#comments Thu, 01 Nov 2007 13:17:00 +0000 admin http://www.stirr.net/posts/show/126

Click here for tickets

Our thanks to Scott Rafer, Patrick Koppula and James Currier. Here are the talks from FHII:

James Currier

Patrick Koppula

Scott Rafer

The videos from FounderHacks I have arrived.

Munjal Shah, CEO, Like.com

David Weekly, CEO, PBWiki

David Marks, CEO, Loomia

Ted Rheingold, CEO, Dogster/Catster

Thanks to Nandor Fejer from bub.blicio.us for the videography work with nods to Brian Solis and Allison McNeill. Thanks to the San Jose Mercury News for additional footage.