Founder Fire

October FounderFire Recap

graves — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 14:20:01 +0000

@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!

October 22nd: Joshua Karp of The Printed Blog on Sharing Startup Experiences

graves — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 05:25:38 +0000

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.

Welcome to the FounderFire!

Ryan Graves — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 23:06:32 +0000

Hello Chicago, this is Ryan Graves, and I’m pleased to announce the beginnings of FounderFire. Our goal is to foster the Chicago & Midwest startup communities!

FounderFire is a group of Chicago startup entrepreneurs & investors dedicated to educating and helping each other and working to inspire the next generation of internet startups. We meet monthly over dinner to discuss relevant topics in technology & entrepreneurship, connect with new people & companies, and share our knowledge & experience.

The co-founders of FounderFire are Ryan Graves & John Fairley; although there are plenty of other supporters of the crew. FounderFire draws inspiration from (and plagiarizes liberally) Startup2Startup, Round Zero, Silicon Forum, and numerous other previous & future entrepreneurial events.

The primary goals of FounderFire’s are:

Sharing of startup founder experiences
Connect great people, specifically the experience and the new talent
Focus on 1 notable/applicable technology or entrepreneurial topic each month
also… Eat, drink, and have a good time.

At the very least, we plan to get the last one right.

We do have 1 Rule:

Dinners are absolutely, positively not open to job seekers, consultants, vendors or service providers of any type. If you even try to sell your product or services during dinner, you’ll be on thin ice and at risk of being banned from future events. These dinners are meant to build a cohesive entrepreneurial community and that happens when people get to know each other and don’t have to avoid being pitched to. If investors are at dinner and you are looking for money, absolutely do not pitch them during dinner. It is very likely that no one else at the table wants to hear your pleas for money. Feel free to get contact information and follow up after dinner but just not during dinner.

(inspired by Startup Dinner in Atlanta)

There will be more to come from FounderFire in the very near future. We’ll have an event in October 2009. Check back for date and venue details. We ask that you would share FounderFire with your startup colleagues and we’ll be seeing you soon.