We had a great time at the April Houston Startup Happy Hour this past Thursday with the JamsBio launch. The turnout was greater than we expected and filled the entire bar area (see photos and video below). We went with a different venue (The Tasting Room) and format (Demos + Networking) for this month’s startup happy hour and I’ll have to say that while we still have some tweaking to do, it was a great event.
Stephen Newman, Matt Williams and the rest of the JamsBio crew did a great job with their demo as well as bringing lots of free T-shirts for everyone and we were excited to be part of their launch. Also, many thanks to JamsBio for also sponsoring the event so that we could offer free drinks to many of you who made it by early.
I learned of two new social media startups at the event that are due to launch in private beta soon, and one established startup that just successfully secured their second round of funding. Unfortunately, I can’t report on them yet, but there are a lot of details that will be coming out soon. Marc Nathan of the HTC also announced Guy Kawasaki’s upcoming appearance at the HTC to give a presentation on The Art of The Start. Overall, very exciting to see the many new things going on in Houston’s startup community.
Here are some of the other startups and tech companies that were seen at the event:
Based on our April experience, here is how we plan to run the May event.
- We are looking for a startup company to demo their latest and greatest features or newest version of their site. Please send an email to [events 'at' startuphouston 'dot' com] if interested.
- The demo will be held in the back room (called The Wine Cellar) of The Tasting Room on the big Plasma screen TV. This will help to cut down on some of the crowd noise we experienced in April’s event and will let the demoing company present longer if needed.
- We are also looking for sponsors for the event. The cost is $200 and goes directly back into promoting the event.
- The startup that is demoing their company can also be the sponsor, but does not have to be. It does make some sense though because the funds will be used to drive more people to the event who will also see the demo.
- We will provide as much promotion as possible for both the demoing company and the sponsoring company
Let us know your thoughts. Did you make it to the Happy Hour? Was it a good event? Did you meet new and interesting startups and people? Did you like the demo or would you recommend another way to show off Houston’s hottest startups? Tell us what you think in the comments section.
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