SVASE BIG EVENT: Digital Media Startups - Expectations and How to Achieve Them in the Current Market February 19, 2009

SVASE BIG EVENT: Digital Media Startups - Expectations and How to Achieve Them in the Current Market

Start: 02/19/2009 - 6:00pm
End: 02/19/2009 - 8:30pm

Contact Info: Laura Weigant
Email: Info@svase.org

URL:-www.svase.org/?q=node/1917

Location: Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati
950 Page Mill Road, Palo Alto, CA 94304

With market conditions severely challenged, VCs are expecting more from their investments, and consumers are expecting more from their purchases. It is not enough just to claim traction or the prospect of a business model in these conditions. Businesses have to work.

On the upside, down markets have historically been a great time to start a business because there is less competition; more talent available, and a tighter focus on dispensing with the frivolous and focusing on the core elements required to create a successful product.

Please join our experienced and opinionated panel for a lively and informative discussion that will probe the following issues:
·So what exactly are VCs willing to fund in Digital Media?
·What are the benchmarks for a fundable company?
·How does an entrepreneur effectively bootstrap his/her way to those milestones?
·What resources are available for cost effectively developing your web & digital media applications?
·What market evaluations, consumer marketing & PR coverage can you get for next to nothing?
·How can you best size your company to achieve your targets with limited funds?

The panel will engage in a discussion of these questions - and more! - all focused on helping entrepreneurs get to success under tough conditions.

The Panel:
·Andrew Chen, Futuristic Play
·Ajay Chopra, General Partner, Trinity Ventures
·TBD
·TBD

Moderator: Chris O’Brien, Economics Reporter, San Joes Mercury News

WHEN: Thursday, February 19
6:00 - 7:00 pm: Networking and hors d’oeuvres
7:00 - 8:15 pm: Panel discussion and Q/A
8:15 - 8:30 pm: Additional networking

LOCATION: Bay Area Peninsula
PRE-REGISTERED RATES (All Rates Include Hors D’oeuvres):

Members - $20; Affiliates who advertise this event - $29; General Public - $49

Business Showcase Exhibit Table – member rate: $149; non-member rate: $250
(Includes exhibit table and two tickets to the event.)
WALK-IN RATES: Add $10.00 to the listed price

Seating is limited, so early registration is recommended to avoid disappointment on the day.

Speaker Bios

Andrew Chen, Futuristic Play
Andrew Chen is a blogger and startup executive focused on advertising and social media. He writes the blog Futuristic Play (andrewchen.typepad.com) and was most recently an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Mohr Davidow Ventures (MDV), a Silicon Valley-based firm with $2B under management. At MDV, Andrew pursued initiatives in digital media and advertising, and was instrumental in MDV’s $20MM investment in Hi5.com, the leading social network for international audiences with 75 million registered users.

Prior to MDV, Andrew was director of product marketing at Revenue Science, where he co-founded the ad network business and was instrumental in growing the network to thousands of websites with over 5 billion ads served per month. He also led teams to handle the company’s initiatives around MySpace and Yahoo, two of Revenue Science’s most strategic partners. In addition, Andrew played key roles in winning the company’s initial brand advertising clients, which now include dozens of top-tier publishers including AOL, InterActiveCorp, ESPN, Washington Post, among others.

Prior to Revenue Science, Andrew worked at MDV’s Seattle office, conducting due diligence for investment opportunities in enterprise software, consumer internet, and life sciences. Andrew came to MDV after serving in software engineering roles at Cobalt Group, a lead generation and eCommerce platform for over 12,000 properties in the automotive vertical.

Andrew holds a B.S. in Applied Mathematics from the University of Washington.

Ajay Chopra, General Partner, Trinity Ventures
Ajay has over 20 years of operating experience at the senior management and board level with start-ups, private companies and public companies. Prior to joining Trinity Ventures in 2006, Ajay co-founded Pinnacle Systems, a seminal media technology company that pioneered consumer generated media creation. During his tenure at Pinnacle, the company grew from start-up stage to a global $350M public company, won several Emmy awards and completed over a dozen M&A transactions before being acquired by Avid Technology. Previously, Ajay was with Mindset Corporation, a computer graphics start-up. Before Mindset, he held various technical and management positions at Atari Corporation, a video games company, and Unisys Corporation, an IT services company. He is a charter member of The Indus Entrepreneurs, an active group providing support for entrepreneurs.

Education:
M.S.E.E., Stony Brook University
B.S.E.E., Birla Institute of Technology & Science in India

Chris O’Brien, Economics Reporter, San Joes Mercury News

Chris O’Brien is currently a business columnist for The San Jose Mercury News, where he has been a business reporter since 1999. During his time there, he won several reporting awards and the paper twice submitted his work for consideration for the Pulitzer Prize.

After graduating from Duke University in Durham, NC in 1991, he took a year off to travel and then landed his first full-time newspaper job at The News & Observer in Raleigh, NC. O’Brien spent his first few years at the paper working as a metro reporter, covering cops, courts, and county governments. In 1992, he received a feature writing award from the North Carolina Press Association for his profile of a legendary police reporter living in Fayetteville, NC.

In 1996, O’Brien took a new beat covering the Research Triangle Park, the world’s largest research park and the hub of the Triangle region’s technology scene. O’Brien wrote about diverse subjects, including biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, personal computers, telecommunications, and computer networking. The job involved writing about the people in the park as opposed to covering the businesses themselves. It also included writing stories about the early impact that the Internet was having on people and businesses.

O’Brien moved to the business desk in 1998 where he covered the networking beat and was responsible for such companies as Cisco Systems, Nortel Networks, and Lucent Technologies. While immersing himself further in the details of technology and finance, he also continued to develop his passion for telling stories about the people involved in these companies.

Official Website: http://www.svase.org/?q=node/1917