Vinnie lives in San Francisco, CA and is the co-founder of Lefora Forum Hosting.
He is also the organizer of the 4,700 member Silicon Valley NewTech Meetup.

SVNewTech – Tue Mar 2 – Marketplaces, Real-Time, and Conversations

Posted: March 2nd, 2010 | Author: vinnie | Filed under: svnewtech | No Comments »

First, congrats to CoTweet.com who presented on our stage just 4 months ago and was acquired today.

Second, if you’re interested in how this meetup grew from 5 to 5,000 members in 4 years, check out a SF Ignite lightning talk I gave at Google last month.

Really interesting mix of companies tonight, but if you can’t make it in person, check out the Live Stream @ 7pm:
http://www.ustream.tv/channel/svnewtech

Apply to demo:
http://demo.newtechmeetup.org

When: Tuesday, Mar 2, 2009 7:00 PM
Where: DLA Piper, 2000 University Ave, Palo Alto
More: http://meetup.com/svnewtech

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Lineup:

notepal.com – Online market for buying and selling notes from classes, conferences, book summaries, etc. [Duane Nason]

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99designs.com – Leverage a community of designs for ‘on-demand’ designs fast and affordable. [Jason Aiken]

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superfeedr.com – Bring real-time updates and notifications to your app with real-time feed parsing in the cloud [Julien Genestoux]

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envolve.com – Just add Envolve to your site for enabling conversations and building community. [James Tamplin]

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Links & Give-aways
* Can your technology solve the issues surrounding the Cloud? Win $10,000 and mentorship in the Cloud Security Challenge 2010. Entry is free. http://GlobalSecurityChallenge.com

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They’re hiring [Sponsored Section]
* Aftershock is looking for a superstar rails/java devs who wants to work in the exploding iphone games market for a company leading the Top 10 games – jobs@aftershocksf.com
* Lead programmer wanted: Exciting 1 yr old web 2.0 start-up. Facebook meets Ebay. Low pay/Ground Floor. I Founded a current leading web entity. Contact: marketing@stylophane.com


Social Alchemy – How to grow a community from 5 to 5,000

Posted: February 19th, 2010 | Author: vinnie | Filed under: svnewtech | No Comments »

I was invited to give a talk at another SF Ignite, this one hosted by West Coast Community Leadership Summit.

Ignite are 5min lighting presentations, with each slide at 30 seconds.  I put together some material for any event organizers that shares some of the knowledge I’ve gained over the past 4 years with my Silicon Valley NewTech meetup and how we grew from 5 members at a coffee shop to 5,000 (technically, we’re at 4,874).

You can watch me with firery red hair side by side with the slides:

Or watch my straight slides with audio over them:

And be sure to check out the rest of the interesting talks from that night, including Ann Winblad’s talk on “What’s in a Name” and how that applies to startups.


SVNewTech – Tue Feb 2 – Where’s the real-time web taking us?

Posted: February 2nd, 2010 | Author: vinnie | Filed under: svnewtech | No Comments »

We have a great lineup of companies leveraging the power of real-time information and updates to power a new set of services.
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Also, at the end I’ll be recapping some info of how we passed the 4 year mark and now our group is about to hit 5,000 members!  The NYT has also provided us with some iphone schwag, enough for all.
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If you can’t make tonight, 7pm Live Stream:
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When: Tuesday, Feb 2, 2009 7:00 PM
Where: DLA Piper, 2000 University Ave, Palo Alto
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Announcements
————————
* Red Cross Wearale Technology Contest – Help the Red Cross bring awareness to the importance of disaster preparedness through wearable technology.  Free to enter! http://bit.ly/svnt-redcross
* Aftershock is looking for a superstar rails/java devs who wants to work in the exploding iphone games market – and for a company leading the Top 10 games on itunes.  Lots of perks, like free lunches, full healthcare, etc.  aftershocksf.com/jobs
* Want to demo your service at a future meetup? http://demo.newtechmeetup.org
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Lineup
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ul.timate.info – Add a whole new UI to the social web.  Pile on features to twitter, facebook, foursquare and a number of other social services. [Jason Wiener]
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lazyfeed.com – Get real-time on real-time news.  Described as a sushi conveyor belt for your interest, let’s see how fast you can fill up. [Ethan Gahng]
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my6sense.com – Filter out the most relevant real-time content coming at you from your social stream. [Barak Hachamov]
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leapfish.com – The web has evolved quite a bit in the last decade but has your search engine?  Leapfish brings real-time and community to your search experience. [Lena Shaw]
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Links
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* Watch January’s Expert Series Talk, Putting a Term Sheet together by Brad Rock, Partner DLA: http://bit.ly/svnt-termsheet
* Can your technology solve the issues surrounding the Cloud?  Win $10,000 and mentorship in the Cloud Security Challenge 2010. Entry is free. http://GlobalSecurityChallenge.com
* Tech & personal experience talks to take the Automattic stage for @IgniteBayArea’s celebration of Global Ignite Week on SF on March 2.
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Supporters
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A special thank you to:
* The New York Times – nyt.com
* Aftershocksf.com who is looking for rails/java engineers.
* Meetup.com who is looking to hire superstar engineers wanting to move to NYC meetup.com/jobs
* DLA Piper for hosting us each and every month – dlapiper.com
* Future-works.com for providing wine & beer at tonight’s event
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Cheers,
Vinnie


Silicon Valley Term Sheets – Presented by Brad Rock at the SVNewTech

Posted: January 8th, 2010 | Author: vinnie | Filed under: svnewtech | Tags: , , , | No Comments »

and the 

Brad Rock, a partner at DLA Piper and gratious host of the Silicon Valley New Tech meetup has shared with us his incredibly valuable Expert Series Talk on what Term Sheets look like in Silicon Valley for web & tech startups.  The presentation was record on ustream and I’m working on getting the audio sync’d with the presentation below.  The slides have a ton of information and I had a number of people come up to me after the talk and say how what they learned about Term Sheets would have cost them hundreds of dollars if they had to sit down with their own lawyers.

Understanding Silicon Valley Term Sheets – Which Terms Don’t Matter & Which Terms Do

A sample Series A Term Sheet provided by Brad Rock, Partner at DLA Piper

Thank you DLA Piper for your many years hosting the Silicon Valley NewTech Meetup.



SVNewTech – Tue Jan 5 – Happy 4th Birthday! Big night planned (mobile, term sheets, and more)

Posted: January 5th, 2010 | Author: vinnie | Filed under: svnewtech | No Comments »

Happy Birthday to us!

The SVNewTech started in Jan of 2006, and in 4 years we’re now 4,700 members strong!  Take advantage of our community offline on our LinkedIn Group.

Tonight we’ll be featuring 3 hot startups with pretty killer iphone services, some with true business models!!!  We also have another speaker of our Expert Talk Series – Brad Rock who you all know as the gracious host to introduce each night will be giving a talk on putting a Term Sheet together.

Google Wave – We’ll also have a few bloggers testing out the real-time collaboration of google wave, if you’d like to participate, at 7pm enter the following in the Google Wave search box: tag:SVNewTech with:public

And a reminder, isocket and meetup are hiring, info below.

If you can’t make tonight, 7pm Live Stream:

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/svnewtech

Lineup:

apptizr.com – iphone app suggestion service that actually works.  It’s like Netflix for apps on your phone. [David Li]

iformbuilder.com – Data Collection on the iphone, that is super easy to build and use.  Some customers include Hershey Chocolates, Comcast, and a number of Universities.  [Chris Reichart]

thinkcomputer.com – Will be launching a new mobile payments service that really impressed me – I think you will be impressed too. [Aaron G. & Michael Anderson]

Expert Talk SeriesPutting a Term Sheet together. [Brad Rock, Partner DLA]

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When: Tuesday, Oct 6, 2009 7:00 PM
Where: DLA Piper, 2000 University Ave, Palo Alto
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Links & Give-aways

  • Are you an Ad Publisher looking to get more money from ads and share tips with other publishers?  Then join the new meetup I’m starting next week.  http://bit.ly/sfadpub
  • FREE – IBM Developer Cloud beta: Request base OS servers and load the stack you like, or try out images of IBM software. RESTful API available.  http://ibm.com/cloud/developer
  • Watch December’s Expert Series Talk, How To ‘Use’ your Users.  http://bit.ly/use-users
  • Want to demo your service at a future meetup? http://demo.newtechmeetup.org

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They’re hiring [Sponsored Section]

  • isocket is a hot new ad platform that just landed some top funding and TechCrunch as their first beta tester. They’re adding a few backend web devs to their small and talented team. Apply – http://www.isocket.com/jobs
  • Meetup is looking for superstar engineers to move to New York City http://meetup.com/jobs (mention this email)
  • Your company here – email vincent -dot- lauria -at- gmail -dot- com

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A special thank you to:

  • The New York Times for sponsoring this meetup – nyt.com
  • Meetup.com who is looking to hire superstar engineers wanting to move to NYC meetup.com/jobs
  • DLA Piper for hosting us each and every month – dlapiper.com
  • Future-works.com for providing wine & beer at tonight’s event.
  • [Your Company Here] -> Email vincent -dot- lauria -at- gmail -dot- com

Happy Birthday & Happy New Year,

Vinnie


SVNewTech – Tue Dec 1 – Wrapping up Year Three of the SVNewTech Meetup

Posted: December 1st, 2009 | Author: vinnie | Filed under: svnewtech | No Comments »
With 2009 ending, we’ll also be wrapping up our 3rd year as a group.  Jan 2010 will be our 4 year birthday!  We have great demos and an Expert Talk tonight, and I’ll leave a little time to field any questions you might have about the meetup for a year-end wrapup.
If you can’t make tonight, 7pm Live Stream:
http://www.ustream.tv/channel/svnewtech
Lineup:
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* likeminds.com – Share your ratings from different websites like Netflix, Amazon, iTunes and discover new favorites. [Alan ElSheshai]
* breakthrough.com – Counseling & psychiatry over the web. Lower costs than traditional methods, yet offers the same effectiveness and the ability to prescribe medicines. [Mark Goldenson]
* rrripple.com – A cool interface that allows you to organize and share your media with whoever you want, however you want. [Dan Smucker]
* Expert Talk Series: How To ‘Use’ your Users – A tongue-in-cheek approach at getting the most out of the community using your web product. [me]
* Year 3 Wrapup
When: Tuesday, Dec 1, 2009 7:00 PM
Where: DLA Piper, 2000 University Ave, Palo Alto
More: http://meetup.com/svnewtech
Links
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* Apply to showcase your startup to tech trend-setters and VC’s at SXSW in March.  Deadline is this Friday. If you’re in bootstap mode, email chris@sxsw.com and he may be able to waive the fee. http://bit.ly/8V9Om0/
* Are you an Ad Publisher looking to get more money from ads and share tips with other publishers?  Then join the new meetup I’m starting in January. http://bit.ly/sfadpub
SVNewTech Job Board
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* Gene Chamson –  Accomplished marketing/biz dev professional with a broad combination of experience, is looking to contribute to an internet startup,  <genemail09@gmail.com>, http://www.linkedin.com/in/genechamson
* Steve Bonner – network sales,  <stevebonner@comcast.net>,
* Tim Crawford – IT Leader: Cloud Computing & Data Center Optimization. Strategic visionary to tactical execution,  <tim.crawford@gmail.com>, http://www.linkedin.com/in/timcrawford
* Santiago Quijano – Product Manager with experience in telecommunications and internet technologies,  <sqnewton@gmail.com>, http://www.linkedin.com/in/santiagoquijano
* Grace Hu-Morley – Looking to help the right company turn technology & market needs into successful, people-friendly products.,  <gracehm@gmail.com>, http://www.gracehm.com
They’re hiring
————————
* Ning is looking for Community Managers, Engineers, Product Managers, Designers, Oracle (11g) DBA and Database Architects. http://about.ning.com/openings.php Contact priya@ning.com and mention this newsletter.
* Meetup is looking for superstar engineers to move to New York City http://meetup.com/jobs (mention this email)
* Tristan Kromer – Looking for a fourth member of my venture startupSQUARE.com in San Fran. Know some engineers? PHP, PERL, HTML, Javascript? Send ‘em my way.,  <accounts@tristankromer.com>, http://www.linkedin.com/in/tristankromer
Sponsors and Supporters
————————
A special thank you to:
* The New York Times for sponsoring this meetup – nyt.com
* Meetup.com who is looking to hire superstar engineers wanting to move to NYC meetup.com/jobs
* DLA Piper for hosting us each and every month – dlapiper.com
* Future-works.com for providing wine & beer at tonight’s event.
* [Your Company Here] -> Email me by replying to this newsletter.

With 2009 ending, we’ll also be wrapping up our 3rd year as a group.  Jan 2010 will be our 4 year birthday!  We have great demos and an Expert Talk tonight, and I’ll leave a little time to field any questions you might have about the meetup for a year-end wrapup.

If you can’t make tonight, 7pm Live Stream: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/svnewtech

Lineup:

————————

likeminds.com – Share your ratings from different websites like Netflix, Amazon, iTunes and discover new favorites. [Alan ElSheshai]

.

breakthrough.com – Counseling & psychiatry over the web. Lower costs than traditional methods, yet offers the same effectiveness and the ability to prescribe medicines. [Mark Goldenson]

.

rrripple.com – A cool interface that allows you to organize and share your media with whoever you want, however you want. [Dan Smucker]

.

A tongue-in-cheek approach at getting the most out of the community using your web product.

Expert Talk Series: How To ‘Use’ your Users – A tongue-in-cheek approach at getting the most out of the community using your web product. [me]

Year 3 Wrap-up

Links

  • Apply to showcase your startup to tech trend-setters and VC’s at SXSW in March.  Deadline is this Friday. If you’re in bootstap mode, email chris@sxsw.com and he may be able to waive the fee. http://bit.ly/8V9Om0/
  • Are you an Ad Publisher looking to get more money from ads and share tips with other publishers?  Then join the new meetup I’m starting in January. http://bit.ly/sfadpub

.

They’re hiring

.
When: Tuesday, Dec 1, 2009 7:00 PM
Where: DLA Piper, 2000 University Ave, Palo Alto
Morehttp://meetup.com/svnewtech
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SVNewTech – Tue Aug 4 – Get rewarded, own yourself, and hear from our Expert Speaker on SEO.

Posted: August 4th, 2009 | Author: vinnie | Filed under: svnewtech | 1 Comment »

I’ve bumped up the RSVP list to allow for a bit more standing room tonight.  If you didn’t make the RSVP, you can still watch it live:

7pm Live Stream -> http://www.ustream.tv/channel/svnewtech

The Lineup

yourversion.com – Save time browsing the web and let YourVersion discover the best web content for you. [Dan Olsen]

nombray.com – Own your online identity.  Pull all your social profiles into one place on the web for people to find you.  [Chris Lunt]

hollrr.com – Get rewarded for shouting about the things you love. – [David Hegarty]

Expert Talk [SEO] – Lawrence Coburn of sexywidget.com and rateitall.com is an Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Expert and has helped a number of startups around the valley increase their rankings on Google.

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When: Tuesday, Aug 4, 2009 7:00 PM
Where: DLA Piper, 2000 University Ave, Palo Alto
More: http://meetup.com/svnewtech



SVNewTech – Tue Jul 7 – Micropayments, Data Visualization, and 3.5yr Recap

Posted: July 7th, 2009 | Author: vinnie | Filed under: svnewtech | No Comments »

We will be Live Streaming tonight’s event once again, so if you didn’t make the RSVP list, you can tune in tonight.

7pm Live Stream -> http://www.ustream.tv/channel/svnewtech

Tonight should be interesting.  For the first half of the demos, you’ll see two companies that are doing very creative things in the micropayment space.  They both have services to help content creators (publishers, newspapers, bloggers, videobloggers, etc.) get small contributions from their large reader list and followers.

The second half of the demos will feature the hard work that a number of SVNewTech’rs put together for historical data on the past 3 1/2 years of svnewtech demos.  Diagramic will be presenting this in their data visulation tool, and I’ll spend a few minutes talking about how web companies have been evolving over the past few years.

Special thanks to the following group members
These two put in many hours of work to gather historical data on presenters.  This data will be published to the group after tonight’s meetup.

* Lakshmi Narayanan http://www.qalegion.com/
* Todd Miner who gets to achieve “total consciousness” caddyshack style

Also, thank you again to everybody that changed their RSVP last month to make for a better meetup experience.  They’ve been added to a special VIP list to gurantee acess to 2 months of meetups.

The Lineup

payyattention.com – A micropatronage network supporting journalism [Steve Farrell]

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kachingle.com – Sprinkle change on the content you love. [Cynthia Typaldos]

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diagramic.com – Automatic data visualaztion that helps ‘connect the dots’ [Alex Kouznetsov]

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Review of Silicon Valley web companies over the past 3 years w/ Q&A from audience [me]

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When: Tuesday, July 7, 2009 7:00 PM
Where: DLA Piper, 2000 University Ave, Palo Alto
More: http://newtechmeetup.org


SiliconValley NewTech Meetup – June 2 – Live Stream, Need 50 volunteers, VIP status, & $50 bucks

Posted: June 1st, 2009 | Author: vinnie | Filed under: svnewtech | No Comments »

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Live Stream for those who didn’t make the RSVP list
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Thanks to ustream.tv, Tuesday’s, June 2nd meetup will be live streamed for those who didn’t RSVP and want to watch from home/work/some mobile device:

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/svnewtech

We are overbooked, there was a problem on the meetup website and the 150 cap was accidentally removed.  We need to get the RSVP list <280 and I need your help!  Read below and I’ll give you a GIFT in return.

If you didn’t RSVP, we CANNOT fit you into the event (I will have a printout of RSVP’s) – but you can watch it live at the link above.


Great lineup with another ‘Expert Speaker’:


notableapp.com
– Building a website?  Notable allows your team to comment directly on the website for faster development times and easier communication. [Hunter Block]

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psd2cssonline.com – Turn a layered photoshop file into dynamic CSS file ready to theme your website or blog. [Shaun McIntyre]

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ccBetty.com – Your own personal email assistant, from event manager to file manager, just ‘CC’ Betty and she’ll organize it for you. [Michael Cerda]

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Expert Talk (Educational Series): Christian Ashlock of Google will give a lightning talk and answer your questions on Google AdSense, Ad Manager, and Analytics

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Need 50 Volunteers & VIP status
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We’ve done extra work to make room for the larger turnout (we’ll be streaming the A/V into another room to split btwn 2 rooms).  However, we still need to knock off 50 people from the RSVP list (get it down to <280) and I have two gifts for trade:

1. A 50% discount on a NewTech meetup happening on June 10 San Francisco. Similar crowd, similar format, and just as interesting. The organizer of the SF Meetup is doing a great favor with this discount (first 30 to respond). http://bit.ly/nBzDO Email vincent.lauria+sfnewtech610@gmail.com for the discount code.

2. A VIP status for 2 months on the SilicionValley NewTech meetup which gives you a guaranteed spot at the next two meetups in Silicon Valley (first 50 to respond). Email vincent.lauria+VIP@gmail.com for VIP status.

If you are willing to help out the group in trade for one of the above options, please email me at the links above AFTER you’ve changed your RSVP to ‘No’ so I can verify.  You’ll help make Tuesday night a better event for everybody.

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Free $50 bucks – no strings
——————————————————
Rob Garcia, of April’s Meetup is giving away $50 awards to members of this meetup group, just sign up for a Lending Club account (no strings attached): http://bit.ly/GLcix

And another FREEBIE just for the SiliconValley NewTech group.  The non-profit, HandsOn Bay Area has an event on Wed from 1-4 in PA.  Join entrepreneurs, VCs, and investors at a unique philanthropic event – Venture Out, a half-day of high-impact volunteering.  2 FREE tickets for the first 2 svnewtech’rs to signup with code ’svnewtechfree’, everybody else gets a discount.  http://bit.ly/biAY2

As you can see, I work hard to keep this event free and get rewards for you, so I hope that 50+ ppl can change their RSVP to ‘No’ to make Tuesday night fun and manageable!

——————-
When: Tuesday, June 2, 2009 7:00 PM
Who: Only those who made the RSVP list (sorry, absolutely NO drop-ins this time)
Where: DLA Piper, 2000 University Ave, Palo Alto
More: http://newtechmeetup.org