DEMO-VentureBeat heads to Boston — goodbye Santa Monica!

Venture Beat — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 19:22:59 -0400

Chris Shipley and I are coming to Boston — the next step in our extended road trip to scout out the best companies and products to launch at the DEMOfall conference in September.

We’re headed there after having a great time in LA, with the highlight last night at the Parlor in Santa Monica, where more than 50 entrepreneurs showed up during the evening (a few photos below). We’re hearing some great pitches on the road, from a guy who wants to turn the insurance industry upside down (and he may do it), to another guy with a novel way to splice music on a mobile phone. Despite the economic funk we’re in, the startup ideas are there. I met one guy last night, recently laid off from MySpace, who says scores of other former MySpace folks are cooking up their own ideas. Necessity is the mother of invention.

We’ll hit Boston beginning Monday and join up for cocktails at the VOX at 755 Boylston in Boston, for another casual evening of conversation.

We’ve invited Xconomy editor Bob Buderi and chief correspondent Wade Roush to join us as co-hosts of the evening (Bob’s post about the event is here). They’ve done a great job covering entrepreneurship in Boston. We’re also inviting any other entrepreneurs or interested professionals who would like to learn about our new offerings at DEMO, which is being held on Sept. 21-23. We’ve got some interesting plans in store, which we’ll talk more about over the next few weeks.

The first 40 folks through the door at Vox on Monday receive a drink ticket good for your favorite beer or wine. We’ll start at 6pm, and go at least until 8pm.

Make sure you register here.

Chris and I will also be holding meetings with entrepreneurs Monday, June 29 and Tuesday, June 30. Just fill out a form (pick either launch or pitch), and drop me a note that you’d like to meet on one of those days, and we’ll get in touch and set something up.

Alumni companies at DEMO include Adobe Acrobat, Sun’s Java, Netscape Navigator, Placeware, the foundation for Microsoft Live Meeting, Palm Computing, WebEx, Salesforce.com, TiVo, E-Trade; VM Ware, Google’s first foray into mobile search, and many more.

[Photographer: Marc Salsberry]

Tyler Crowley and Andrew Warner

Abdul Khan on far right

Mark Landay and Babette Papha

Adam Weinroth

Matt

Matt, Francisco Dao, and Mark Landay

Paige Craig, Rob Williams