One Crazy Week, Part 1

First off let me apologize for my lack of content as of late. As many of you know, this is not my primary gig so my time has been more recently directed to client work and business development than posting. Last week, was an exception as the community enjoyed a thoroughly exhausting week of events. After getting my kids down for the night (we went and saw Bolt in the theaters today, which I recommend highly), I now have some time to fill those in who might have missed some of the week’s wackiness.

Rice Alliance’s IT & Web 2.0 Venture Forum
I confess that I was not able to attend the early session with Jeff Dachis and the Business Plan Presentations, which the latter is something I would have liked to have seen. Personally, I was a bit upset that Mr. Dachis did not stick around for the remainder of the day’s events but I am not too surprised: guys like that do us the honor of their wisdom and presence but have high powered projects of their own to tend to. Hanging out in Houston to see what’s going on doesn’t always resonate. The VC panel is almost always a waste of time for me personally because I know that nothing real will be said by any of them…VC’s are generally way to polite to say what they really feel (which is a decent trait to have but it wastes a lot of people’s time.)

Early feedback I received from friends at the event was that NutshellMail and Rudder presented very well, Austin’s Moximity was a hit and that I need to spend time and meet the team from Gendai Games. I have not heard much about Net Watch Solutions so if anyone can fill me in, please do so. Anyone in Houston knows how great the Rudder and Nutshell guys are so nothing unexpected there and I’ve seen Moximity and know they are headed for success.

After grabbing lunch, we all headed back to the main hall where Jaime Casap from Google did a bang up presentation that really grabbed the audience’s attention. Overall, he was engaging and a likable cat, but I have heard his talk about the changes we are experiencing through social network expansion before in a variety of flavors. I suspect that there are still Houstonians that are not all that web savvy and if he helped move some of them closer to a better understanding then kudos to him. I was tempted at one point to ask him where Google kept these clouds he was talking about. Do they seep out of the data centers they hold them in?

Listening to the Elevator Pitches was interesting (you can hear them all courtesy of the BusinessMakers Radio Show…thanks Russ) and as a judge, I made a point of analyzing them more technically than I usually do. Although no one pitch really made me jump out of my seat, several stood out as being better than the rest: Fictionaut, Hourville, JamsBio, MyCityRocks, Piryx, Plura Processing, Smooth-stone, Socialware and VideoHires. My congratulations to everyone who had the onions to get in front of the crowd and make themselves known; it’s not an easy thing to do.

Of course my favorite part of the day was the Texas Web 2.0 Bloggers and Innovators Panel (I am not sure which one I am supposed to be) moderated by a great guy and good friend, Blair Garrou of DFJ Mercury. It was awesome finally meeting Alex Muse of Texas Startup Blog and Dean McCall from IdeaGin in person. I’ve met Bryan Menell of Austin Startup before but it was still great seeing him again. Blair managed to incite us with just the right questions and we responded in kind with some great insight (mostly from Alex, Bryan and Dean…I am just the village idiot in these groups there for comedic support.) Hopefully, someone got some use out of our blabber.

The event wrapped up with Bruce Dunlevie of Benchmark Capital Management, a marquee venture capital firm located in the epicenter of venture activity on Sand Hill Road. I have to see that I thoroughly enjoyed Bruce’s presentation as humble and insightful all in one. Although I tend to find myself in disagreement with the mainstream venture investing model, Bruce showed me that all VC’s are not useless and some really are out in the market making a difference. He’s a class act and I am thankful he came back to Rice for the event. Good grab, Brad!

In part 2, I will talk about the Houston Startup Happy Hour at Saute following the Rice Alliance event.