March 10, 2008
SXSW Interactive – Monday, March 10, 2008
It’s been a long, fun filled day at SXSW Interactive today. So this post won’t be as meaty as my previous SXSW post. I met tons of people today and many people who know me and who I know from twitter. It was so cool to have so many people come up to me and say, ‘hey, aren’t you @aruni on twitter?’ I guess I kind of stand out in a crowd. 
I probably gained about 30 followers just from tweeting about the panels I attended. Here’s a quick overview because honestly I’m kinda worn out:
The Care and Feeding of Your Startup
This panel was made up of some local entrepreneurs from Unwired Nation as well as a venture capitalist from Texas based DFJ Mercury and a couple of others. Some key insights:
- Someone needs to serve as the “Belief Engine” for your startup which I took to mean the “evangelist” but I thought that was a unique way of saying it.
- Make sure your product fits into your users way of life and they don’t have to drastically change what they are doing
- Understand if your concept is a feature or a business. It could be a feature that expands into a business.
- You should aim to exceed investor’s expectations.
- 9 out of 10 entrepreneurs can’t go the distance so they really should identify a strong mentor.
- Make sure the people you hire have ‘karmic velcro’ which means they have the fortitude to stick around when the going gets tough.
- There are 3 key people you need in a start-up. 1 in charge of product, 1 handling business development who can close the early deals, and 1 evangelist.
- It’s not appropriate to go to VCs in the first 2 years of a business, because in the first 2 years you are still assessing the market risk. Almost all the VC deals that occurred with Web companies in early stage have not worked out and they are struggling to get their money back.
- Keep two sets of books. One you show your investors and one with even more aggressive numbers that you aim for internally.
True Stories from Social Media Sites
This panel was moderated by Guy Kawasaki, who was so kind to put my blog near the top of his new AllTop Moms site. It was notably a panel of 5 women and 1 guy. Two of the women were twitter pals so when I got up to ask a question and say ‘hi’ one of them was tweeting about me.
I had my son with me at this panel because he’s home for Spring Break so I wasn’t able to take a lot of notes or do many tweets because half way through he wanted to play a game on my phone! He actually did really well, scribbled a bit, and then drew a funny looking dinosaur who he felt the need to show was pooping. Such a funny kid! He wanted me to go up to the mic and say something, but when I tried to get him to come with me, he got shy…he is only afterall 5 1/2.
The panelists discussed their great and not-so-great experiences using social media. What funny and sometimes unbelievable stories they shared!
I met up with my husband after that panel and we took our son for a late lunch at Bennigan’s and then he took him home, and I went to the BlogHaus to network with more bloggers.
Online Adulation: Use Don’t Abuse Your Fans
This panel had an editor from CNET as moderator and some pretty fabulous bloggers including the infamous Dooce whose current post is called Fueled Entirely by Advil.
I was sitting next to Wendy Piersall from eMoms at Home during this panel and she was twittering away. She had her laptop so she could do it much faster than I could so I let her take over so go read her twitter stream if you want to read all about it.
Went back to the Bloghaus after this panel and met none other than Darren Rowse (aka Problogger). Someone took a picture of us and said he’d email it to me so I’ll post it when I get it…assuming he remembers.
Conversation Starters
This event was hosted by DELL and Federated Media and they booked the entire Iron Cactus restaurant on 6th and Trinity. Richard at DELL was the lead blogging rep from DELL, who I had met a few weeks earlier at an Austin Tweet Up.
Because I’m twitter friends with Kim Haynes, I volunteered to help with registration since it was an RSVP only event. Of course, that meant I had access to extra drink tickets and people wanted to get to know me!
The key speakers were top blogger and FastCompany.tv producer Robert Scoble (aka Scobleizer) and Shel Israel of Global Neighborhoods.
I met so many twitter buds at Conversation Starters, including the famous Chris Brogan, and throughout the day that it would take me all night to type up their names. Already, this post is longer than I thought it would be!
Stay tuned for my next SXSWi post on Tuesday’s events.
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March 12th, 2008 at 9:24 am, entrepreMusings » SXSW Interactive - Tuesday, March 11, 2008 Says:
[...] Means… « SXSW Interactive – Monday, March 10, 2008 [...]
April 12th, 2008 at 1:22 pm, entrepreMusings » The Blogger Mom, In Your Face Says:
[...] even knew what a blog was! I got the opportunity to meet Heather Armstrong (a.k.a Dooce) at SXSW and exchange a few words with her. She is such a down to earth [...]