So I probably should have written about this some time ago, but I’ve been lazy. Coty Rosenblath offered up an idea some time ago of doing a focused networking dinner for Atlanta technology type folks. I kept egging him on to get this going and we’ve now arranged two dinners. Basically the premise is to build a stronger entrepreneurial network in Atlanta through informal dinners. The main requirement for attending is that you’ve got to be a current or past founder of a technology oriented company or a top level manager of a company. Plus we need to actually know you or one of the past attendees needs to know you. Our goal is to prevent these dinners from being infiltrated by folks who add no value or who just suck up value and don’t provide anything to others. Also note that you have to pay for dinner yourself. We aren’t footing the bill nor do we have any kind of outside sponsors.
Last night (October 9, 2006) was the second dinner. We dined at Brio in Buckhead and had a lively group of folks:
- Frederic Bien, former SVP Advanced Media Technology at Time Warner
- Sanjay Parekh, Random Doer of Things
- Raghu Rajah, Chief Architect at MedQuist
- Coty Rosenblath, CTO at RevenueMed
- Ed Trimble, CEO of EzGov
- John Vincent, CEO of EyeWonder
The first dinner (August 9, 2006 at Maggiano’s in Buckhead) was attended by:
- Frederic Bien, former SVP Advanced Media Technology at Time Warner
- Jeff Haynie, former CTO at Vocalocity
- Sanjay Parekh, Random Doer of Things
- Coty Rosenblath, CTO at RevenueMed
- Jeff Schilling, CTO at S1 Corp.
Our target is to keep these dinners to eight people at most. Our first dinner had five and our second had six. We’re creeping up there and I imagine we’ll always keep them at six to eight at most.
So why do you care? Most of you may not. But for those of you who fit the criteria of attending these dinners may care (being a metro Atlanta resident isn’t a requirement although it is helpful!). If you know me (and equally important, if I know and can remember you) and you want to attend the next dinner, let me know. You could Jangl me or if you know me, you’ll know my email address. Just drop me a line and I’ll ping you the next time we arrange a dinner. We’ll probably do the next dinner some time in a month or two.
Oh yeah, and thanks to all the participants so far for attending and making great dinner conversation. Even if it was about companies that I don’t like. :-)
[...] If VCs want to improve their relationship with entrepreneurs, they need to start looking at the things they say and do and make sure they aren’t being offensive towards their future business partners. Remember, all business transactions, in the end, are based on relationships. If you forge poor relationships, your deal flow will dry up. If you think there aren’t forums through which entrepreneurs talk to each other about their experiences (with VCs and other things), I’d say you were wrong. Technorati Tags: adult supervision, entrepreneurship, relationship building, VC lingo, venture capital Consult with Sanjay on thistopic or any other. 1-888-MY-ETHER ext. 01834613 [...]
[...] One of the guys I met at an Atlanta Technology Dinner – Jeff Haynie – is working on an Atlanta conference for networking and discussing things Web 2.0. The SoCon 07 is free (if you don’t want to eat or need a place to stay) and registration is open now. So what are you waiting for? I’ll be there for most of it. If you’re there, make sure you come up and say “hi”. Consult with Sanjay on thistopic or any other. 1-888-MY-ETHER ext. 01834613 [...]
[...] We’ll also make sure we highlight events that are happening so that a wider interested audience can participate. Things like the Atlanta Technology Dinners which I spoke about before (those are invite only though) or SoCon07 (registration has already closed though). [...]
[...] Our dinner and this blog are actually examples of that. Last year I mentioned to Sanjay that I thought it would be a good idea to get people together that we knew who were doing interesting things in Atlanta. Sanjay kept after me to do something about it, and we had our first dinner on August 9th of last year. I’m really excited about what we have going on, but my idea would be worth diddly were it not for Sanjay’s urge to action. [...]
[...] some time ago, Coty Rosenblath and I started doing a series of networking dinners for folks who were technology entrepreneurs. Well, it’s been well over a year since [...]