@jkarp shares the story of The Printed Blog

FounderFire #1 was a huge success!

It was great to listen to and interact with a Chicago based VC and seasoned startup founders. Here are the key take-aways from the conversations I was involved in (by John Fairley, co-founder):

The Chicago startup community is fragmented. (I agree, there were 3 events held on the same night)

On Raising Money from Angels/VCs:
- More difficult in Chicago, compared to the Valley. This is a fact of life.
- In Chicago, you have to bootstrap longer
- If your’re not in the Valley, VCs may require you to move there in order to be funded
- Your business model should align to something VCs want to fund
- Your industry should align to the VC’s funding areas of interest

Fantastic press coverage doesn’t guarantee success. But, it can open doors.

Scaling:
- Focus on proving the business model before you scale.
- Costs shouldn’t increased linearly alongside with customer growth. (in order to be VC funded -RG)

Overall, a great night. As we scale up the dinner meetups, I can see these dinners becoming more and more valuable for startups and venture capital community.

Thank you to the sponsors:
- Renliv
- MK Capital
- Blurbz

David Rengal shares the challenges and joys of VC in Chicago

@johnfairley, @low_light, David Rengal

@uhsiv, John Brzowski, @jakelumetta, (@lethrift, not in image)

Next event:

Out next event will likely be near the beginning of December. Please stay tuned on this site for updates on the coming events speaker, location, and time!

This Thursday October 22nd, for the first FounderFire dinner, we’ll be meeting at Twisted Spoke on the corner of Grand & Ogden (map) in Chicago’s West Loop at 6:30pm. We’re looking forward to a  discussion on the future growth of FounderFire  events and also emphasizing the importance of sharing your startup experiences.

Our speaker for the night is Josh Karp the founder of the once very popular ‘The Printed Blog’. “The Printed Blog is an independent media outlet that aggregates user-generated content from the Internet and publishes it twice daily via print. The result is a revolutionary newspaper that reads and functions like a web feed – yet can still be enjoyed on the train or spread across the breakfast table, for an uninterrupted, pleasurably tactile experience.”

Josh will share his experience organizing and growing an extremely well known startup and the process of deciding that it would not be able to continue on. His experience is one that any entrepreneur can learn a great deal from. In his effort to raise investment capital and building a powerful team of publishers there are many lessons to be learned.

FounderFire Event Details:

When: Thursday, October 22^nd. 6:30 PM – 8:30PM

Where: Twisted Spoke – 501 N. Ogden Ave. Chicago, IL

Drinks: 1^st Round Free (thank you Blurbz)

Cost: Free, but dinner is buy-your-own

Sign-up: http://founderfire01.eventbrite.com/

Also, we’ll have many Chicago startup entrepreneurs and members of the venture capital community joining for our first event. If you’re founding a startup or an executive of a current startup, or if you are a member of the early stage investment community here in Chicago or the surrounding area, please join us. The first round of drinks will be sponsored by local startup Blurbz.

If you live in Chicago, please share this post with friends who are a part of area startups, we’d love to have you attend.