Pitches for Facebook for Web Apps – September, 2010

Event Summary

This event will:

• Provide an overview of essential design topics for web entrepreneurs
• Provide an overview of essential design topics for web entrepreneurs
• Connect designers and startups

Panel topics:

• What are the essential web design disciplines and why is each important? – graphic/visual, interaction, information architecture, print, branding/identity, user experience, research, usability testing, etc.
• Examples of startups with successful web design. How were these design efforts staffed/resourced?
• Startup design prioritization – how to know which design tasks are essential at which point in a given startup.
• In-house vs. outsourcing design – can you find a designer to do everything? What are the costs of hiring a design firm?
• How to hire designers – recruiting founders, hiring design firms, terms.
• How to know if your web design is working. How to measure the effectiveness of web design.
• How is working at a startup different than working at a design firm?

Moderator:

• Graham Lawlor, Founder of Ultra Light Startups and CEO of BrightMap

Panelists (alphabetic order):

• Christopher Fahey, Principal, User Experience Director at Behavior Design
• Seth Giammanco, Principal, Technology Lead at Minds On Design Lab
• Dan Maccarone, Co-Founder at Hard Candy Shell
• Gloria Petron, President of the New York City Usability Professionals’ Association

Panel Video

Pitch Video

Pitch List

Presentation Slides

Main Presentation – Web Design for Startups

Blog Posts

Web Design for Startups (by 12 Months to Launch)

Panelist Bios

Christopher Fahey (@chrisfahey)
Christopher is a founding partner and user experience director at Behavior, an award-winning interaction design consultancy focused on building compelling and elegant user experiences. At Behavior, Chris leads the UXD and product design strategies for clients creating new and innovative products and services, including The National Geographic Channel, Blurb.com, Allscripts, UNICEF, HBO, BusinessWeek, The Smithsonian Institution, XM Radio, and The Onion. Chris speaks often on user experience design, and he teaches at the School of Visual Arts’ interaction design MFA program.

Seth Giammanco (@mindsondesign)
Seth is Principal and technology lead at Minds On Design Lab, a print and web design and development studio that serves education and social service organizations and startups including SEO Watch andLeaderNation. An experienced software product and project manager, Seth combines strategic vision with hands-on technology development skills. Prior to joining Minds on Design Lab, Seth served as a project/product manager for over six years for TaskStream, an educational technology company.

Dan Maccarone (@danmaccarone)
Dan created Hard Candy Shell with Kevin Kearney after the two completed the strategy and design work on Hulu. At HCS, Dan has worked with clients such as the Wall Street Journal, Saturday Night Live, FourSquare, Gilt Group, Gawker and CBS Radio. He has spent over 12 years developing online business strategies and user-centered design solutions for companies such as NBC, Fox, Universal Music, GE Capital, AOL, Sports Illustrated, Discovery, Scholastic and Chivas Regal. He also served as the Senior Producer for the Digital Club Network, the Web’s first virtual concert venue.

Gloria Petron
After two years as a user experience consultant for Weil, Gotshal & Manges, LLP, Gloria now consults for Citibank and is President of the New York City Usability Professionals’ Association (NYC UPA), an association for marketing, design, technology and research professionals to share experiences and create a forum for learning and growth. Previously, Gloria held roles as art director, lead animator, interaction designer, prototype-builder, information architect, copywriter, usability tester, and project manager for startups and large firms including iXL, HSBC Private Bank and ModemMedia.

Event Summary

• What is game-based marketing and how does it work?
• Examples of successful game-based marketing strategies and why they are successful (e.g. Foursquare, LinkedIn, commenting in blogs, answering Q&A questions).
• Practical advice for developing game dynamics into an existing marketing strategy. Effective methods of “gameifying” any online business.
• How to incent and motivate participation through gamification. Use points and leveling up to get people to do anything (e.g. the “completion bar” on LinkedIn).
• Quests and transaction based goals. Soloing vs group questing. Using game dynamics to promote virality (e.g. gathering testimonials).
• Hard-core vs. casual users. Why both are important, identifying them and developing satisfying experiences for both. The Bartle Player types (achievers, explorers, socializers, and killers).
• The scientific approach to measuring engagement and the value of specific user interactions.
• Balancing deprivation and overload, order and chaos, silence and noise.
• The difference between designing content and creating an experience.

Moderator:

• Graham Lawlor, Founder of Ultra Light Startups and CEO of BrightMap

Panelists (alphabetic order):

• Ty Ahmad-Taylor, CEO of FanFeedr
• Chris Sullivan, Director of Sales, Eastern Region at Bunchball
• Eric von Coelln, Vice President of OMGPOP
• Gabe Zichermann, CEO of beamME and author of Game-Based Marketing

Presentation Slides

Gabe Zichermann – Game Mechanics Basics

Main Presentation – Game Dynamics and Marketing

Blog Posts

Ultra Light Startups Panel Talks “Gameification” by NYConvergence

Game Mechanics 101 by Holly

Panel Video

Pitch Video

Video courtesy of Deeper.io

Pitch List

Panelist Bios

Ty Ahmad-Taylor (@fanfeedr)
Ty is CEO and founder of FanFeedr, a real-time personalized sports aggregator, allowing sports fans to get an ever-updated fix of sports news, videos and tweets. Before launching FanFeedr, he was SVP, Strategy and Product Development at Viacom, where he was the product lead and manager for MTV.com, VH1.com, CMT.com and LogoOnline.com (among others). Before that, he was Senior Director of Cross-Platform Applications at Comcast, and Creative Director at Excite@Home.

Eric von Coelln
Eric is VP of Marketing at OMGPOP, a free multiplayer online game site. Eric has spent over a decade in online marketing at Prodigy and DoubleClick and over the last four years has been VP of Marketing at casual and social game startups Oberon Media and PowerChallenge. Before joining OMGPOP, Eric was a frequent contributor to InsideSocialGames.com focusing on the metrics and marketing of social game startups like Zynga and Playdom.

Chris Sullivan
Chris is Director of Sales, Eastern Region for Bunchball, a social game marketing and analytics platform. Bunchball enables clients to measure and drive participation, engagement, loyalty and revenue through the various channels where content can be accessed such as mobile applications and social networks. Chris markets Bunchball to brands, publishers, media companies and interactive ad agencies including NBC, Comcast, Warner Brothers, and others. Prior to Bunchball, Chris held various sales roles at the publishing companies and start-ups such as Engage Media and Preview Travel.

Gabe Zichermann (@gzicherm)
Gabe is founder/CEO of beamME, an iPhone software startup revolutionizing business social networking. His most recent book, Game-Based Marketing examines innovators who blend the power of games with brand strategy. His next book, Funware in Action (Manning, 9/2010) is a detailed technical look at how to implement game mechanics on the web. Zichermann is also the author of Funware Blog, a board member of StartOut.org, and Facilitator for the NYC chapter of the Founder Institute.

Event Summary

• What is an “lean” or “agile” startup? Do non-lean startups exist?
• What are viable options for financing a startup until you achieve profitability or fundability?
• Is “lean” a (temporary) stage of a startup or a (permanent) type of startup?
• If it’s a stage, what is the objective of the stage? What is a “product/market fit”. How do you know when you’ve achieved it?
• If it’s a type, what makes certain startups more applicable to the lean/agile approach than others? How do you finance startups not of that type?
• If you’ve already achieved a product/market mix, why would you then give away equity and control by seeking venture funding?
• What legal structures (LLC, C-Corp, S-Corp; Delaware vs. New York; etc) are most appropriate for the lean approach?
• What impact will proposed changes to angel finance regulations have on bootstrappers?
• What event should trigger a search for investment? Competition? Acceleration? Being first to market? Finding an application for a new technology? Funding development of an initial prototype? Sustaining a system with lots of users but no revenue model?
• Does ‘lean-ness’ change after financing? What should change about the way a startup spends money after a financing round?

Moderator:

• Graham Lawlor, Founder of Ultra Light Startups and CEO of BrightMap

Opening Remarks By:

• Kareem Kouddous, Co-founder & Organizer at NYC Lean Startup Meetup
• Phineas Barnes, Principal at First Round Capital

Panelists (alphabetic order):

• Murat Aktihanoglu, Founder and CEO of Centrl Inc and organizer of Entrepreneurs Roundtable
• Brad Burnham, Partner at Union Square Ventures
• Joe Chin, Co-founder and CEO of SourcePad
• Peter Rothberg, Partner at Duane Morris

Presentation Slides

Kareem Kouddous – Lean Startup in 5 Minutes

Phineas Barnes – Leanwashing

Main Presentation – Financing Lean Startups

Panel Video

Pitch Video

Video courtesy of Deeper.io

Pitch List

Panelist Bios

Murat Aktihanoglu
Murat most recently started and sold Centrl Inc, a location-based social network. Prior to founding Centrl, Murat was a technology consultant for 16 years building web, media and 3D infrastructures for SGI, Sony, Logitech, Pioneer, Panasonic and various startups, including his own previous startup TheNextWeb.com. Murat is also the organizer of Entrepreneurs Roundtable monthly meetings for entrepreneurs and investors in NYC. His book on Location-based Services is coming out this summer from Manning.

Brad Burnham
Brad is a partner at Union Square Ventures, an early stage venture capital fund focused on web services. Prior to Union Square, Brad held a variety of sales, marketing and business development positions at AT&T and Bell Laboratories and was a founder at AT&T Ventures first spin-out, Echo Logic. After Echo Logic was sold in 1993, Brad joined AT&T Ventures as an Executive in Residence and later General Partner where he was responsible for 14 investments. Brad currently serves on the boards of Indeed, Pinch Media, Tumblr, Wesabe, Adaptive Blue, SimulMedia, Tracked.com, Meetup, and Bug Labs.

Joe Chin
Joe is the Founder and CEO of SourcePad, an instant outsourcing company. Prior to SourcePad, Joe was the founding CEO of Guidester (now Searchandise Commerce) an eCommerce ad network. Joe was also the Managing Director of REOL, Internet Analyst at Laidlaw, founder/President of Diadem (a multi-player game company), and founder/principal of JEV (an import/export company). Joe is a frequent speaker and has been quoted in numerous publications such as BusinessWeek, Fortune, and Inc. Magazine. Over the course of his career, Joe has raised over $20 million in financing from both angels and VC’s.

Peter Rothberg
Peter is a partner with Duane Morris LLP, a full service law firm. He focuses on corporate securities, venture capital, mergers and acquisitions, financial transactions and digital media company representation. Peter represents both startups and venture capital funds including Village Ventures, High Peaks Ventures, Borealis Ventures and Stonehenge Capital in financing and acquisition transactions. Additionally, Peter sits on the board of the New York/Tri-State Chapter of the Keiretsu Forum, is the Lawyer in Residence for NYU Stern School of Business Entrepreneurship Program and is Legal Counsel to Ultra Light Startups.

Event Summary

This event will:

• Survey of the mobile startup ecosystem. How much money has been made, by whom, on what platforms, with what types of applications?
• What differentiates a successful mobile application from an unsuccessful one?
• Designing and specifying a mobile application.
• Finding and evaluating mobile application developers (agencies, freelancers, permanent hires).
• Developing an application for the iPhone, Android, Blackberry, and Windows Mobile platforms. Building cross platform mobile applications.
• Usability testing and analytics for mobile applications.
• Submission and approval of mobile applications into app stores. App store terms.
• Effective pricing and marketing strategies for mobile applications.
• What are the opportunities for startups with the iPad and related devices as an application platform?

Moderator:

• Graham Lawlor, Founder of Ultra Light Startups and CEO of BrightMap

Panelists (alphabetic order):

• Nihal Mehta, Co-founder and CEO of buzzd
• Alex Muller, Co-founder and CEO of GPShopper
• Rachit Shukla, Co-founder and CEO of Two Toasters
• Greg Yardley, Co-founder and Vice President, Products – Ad Optimization at Flurry

Panel Video

Overview of Ultra Light Startups
(courtesy of Girls In Tech NYC)

Advice from Ultra Light Members – How to Select Technology Vendors
(courtesy of Girls In Tech NYC)

Pitch Video

Pitch List

Presentation Slides

Main Presentation – Mobile Startups

Panelist Bios

Nihal Mehta
Nihal is CEO and co-founder of buzzd, a venture backed social cityguide on the iPhone, Blackberry and Android. Prior to buzzd, Nihal founded ipsh!, one of the first full-service mobile marketing agencies in 2001, which he sold to Omnicom in 2005, and Urbangroove, an online nightlife portal. Nihal also co-chairing the innovation advisory board for Reshma for Congress, co-founded the non-profit Project Ahimsa, and co-founded the mobile seed venture fund ENIAC.

Alex Muller
Alex is CEO and co-founder of GPShopper, a mobile marketing company that helps consumers connect with local retail stores. GPShopper builds applications for clients including Best Buy, Nikon, and LG and also markets its own applications, including Slifter, local shopping application with over 2 billion local product listings. GPShopper is funded by Allen & Co and since 2005 has built mobile applications for platforms including iPhone, Android, Blackberry, J2ME and BREW. Prior to GPShopper, Alex founded and sold Evolve Living, an environmental software company.

Rachit Shukla
Rachit is CEO and co-founder of Two Toasters, a mobile development agency that merges expert mobile strategy with focused development to shepherd an app from an idea all the way to the app store. Two Toasters’ work includes iPhone, iPad, Android and Blackberry and has been featured in the NY Times, Wall Street Journal, CNN and recently in an Apple iPhone Commercial. Previously, Rachit founded a number of startups including IdeaBahn, an idea management platform.

Greg Yardley
Greg is Co-founder and Vice President, Products – Ad Optimization at Flurry, a provider of analytics, deployment and monetization tools for mobile application developers. Before Pinch Media merged with Flurry in December 2009, Greg was Pinch’s co-founder and CEO. Prior to Pinch Media, Greg led product management for next-generation ad serving platforms at Yahoo! and Right Media and held product management positions at Root Markets and NexTag.

Event Summary

The Online Advertising Ecosystem

• What is an ad network? What is an ad exchange? Why do they exist? Who uses them?
• Types of ad networks – Representative, blind, targeted
• Ad exchanges, ad servers, demand-side platforms, publisher-side platforms, data providers
• Technologies/media – Display/banner, text, video, mobile, email, SMS, rich media, flash, etc.

For Publishers – Selling Inventory on Ad Networks and Exchanges

• How to profitably use ad networks and exchanges to sell your ad inventory
• Estimating revenues and comparing across various ad networks
• Ad networks vs. exchanges vs. direct sales – how to determine the most effective way to monetize
• Differentiating between/among ad networks – how to know which to use

For Advertisers – Buying Inventory through Ad Networks and Exchanges

• How to utilize ad networks and exchanges to efficiently get your message out and convert traffic
• Affordable and cost effective buying strategies for online businesses
• How to find the right ad network/exchange for your brand, message, and technology
• Case studies of innovative/successful use of targeted ad networks/exchanges by advertisers

Moderator:

• Graham Lawlor, Founder of Ultra Light Startups and CEO of BrightMap

Panelists (alphabetic order):

• Dean Harris, CMO of Kayak.com, Vonage, and HotJobs
• Jonathan Hsu, CEO of 24/7 Real Media
• Brian O’Kelley, CEO of AppNexus
• Anand Subramanian, Founder and Chairman of ContextWeb

Panel Video

Presentation Slides

Main Presentation – Ad Networks and Exchanges for Startups

Blog Posts About this Panel

Online Advertising Discussed by Ultra Light Panel (by NYConvergence)

Online Advertising Entering a “Golden Age” (by Ultra Light Startups)

Panelist and Moderator Bios

Jonathan Hsu
Jonathan is the CEO of 24/7 Real Media, a leading global digital marketing company acquired by WPP in 2007. 24/7 Real Media powers more than 45,000 web sites, delivers over 800 billion ads and reaches 200 million unique visitors. Previously, Jonathan was an M&A specialist at JP Morgan Chase Securities and served as a venture capitalist at American Lead Ventures, focused upon digital start-ups. Mr. Hsu is a member of the World Economic Forum Future of the Internet Council, the Paley Center for Media, and Vistage Global CEO Group.

Brian O’Kelley
Brian is the CEO and Co-founder of AppNexus, an advanced ad management platform specializing in real-time performance advertising. Brian created the first successful ad exchange as CTO of Right Media (acquired by Yahoo for $850MM in July 2007). Prior to Right Media, Brian was CEO of Netamorphosis, an early social networking and e-commerce site for events and venues. Brian is an active partner at Grape Arbor, an angel investor group with investments into more than a dozen technology companies.

Anand Subramanian
Anand is Founder and Chairman of ContextWeb, creators of ADSDAQ, an easy-to-use online advertising exchange that brings together advertisers and publishers to enable mutually beneficial advertising transactions. As CEO, Mr. Subramanian directed all aspects of ContextWeb’s business and operations including building and managing a team of technology innovators, sales, marketing, operations, product management and new product development. Today, the ADSDAQ Ad Exchange ranks among the top 15 ad-supported properties, according to comScore, reaching 143 million monthly unique visitors.

Event Summary

This event will cover:

SEO Basics

• Terms: SEO/SEM/PPC; keywords, pagerank; on-page vs. off-page; black hat vs. white hat; crawling, indexing & ranking
• Strategy: Defining objectives, ROI tracking/analytics, keyword and competitive research, research tools
• On-Site Tactics: Sitemaps, robots.txt files, page title/H1/H2/meta/URL, image alt tags, manual submission to search engines, internal linking
• Off-Site Tactics: Link building, social media, PR, backlinks via badges, widgets (html, iframes, javascript)
• Myths and Facts: Duplicate content, link sharing networks, indexing Javascript, AJAX and interactive content, speed as a ranking factor, keyword meta tags, the “Google sandbox”

SEO for New Websites

• Why is SEO for new websites different than for established websites?
• Thinking more like a consumer, and less like a marketer
• Strategies when using off-the-shelf platforms (e.g. WordPress, Drupal, etc)
• Strategies when building a site from scratch (e.g. php, Rails, .NET, etc)
• Top SEO must-do tips for new sites (see here, here, here, and here)
• Site launch – press releases, blog backlinks, social bookmarking

Advanced Topics in SEO

• Social Media and Real-time Search: How do social media and real-time content play into your SEO strategy?
• Content Types: Video, audio, images, products, locations, etc
• Innovations in Search Engines: Real-time/Twitter search, Bing, Google squared, Google social search, semantic search, mobile search, voice search

Moderator:

• Graham Lawlor, Founder of Ultra Light Startups and CEO of BrightMap

Panelists (alphabetic order):

• Seth Dotterer, Senior Director, Marketing at Conductor, Inc
• Christopher Hart, Director, Eastern Region Operations Bruce Clay Inc.
• Kevin Lee, CEO of Didit and Founder of SEMPO
• Dennis Yu, Founder and CEO of BlitzLocal

Panel Video

Presentation Slides

Main Presentation – SEO for New Websites

Panelists and Moderator Bios

Seth Dotterer

Seth is Senior Director of Marketing at Conductor, Inc. a leading provider of SEO measurement and optimization technology. Seth has helped companies from startups to the Fortune 100 on their marketing strategies and utilizing technology and metrics to increase sales and profitability. For over a decade, Dotterer has been obsessed with SEM/SEO and taking an analytical approach to online marketing for clients including Microsoft, Dell, and Circuit City. Before Google existed, Dotterer was running successful pay per click advertising on Goto.com (which later became Overture, which became Yahoo! Search Marketing).

Christopher Hart

Chris runs the New York office of Bruce Clay Inc., a leading global Internet marketing consulting firm that specializes in SEO and PPC. Chris manages client SEO projects and coordinates the company’s East Coast sales. He also teaches many of the company’s acclaimed SEOToolSet® Training and Certification courses, and has spoken at national search industry conferences. Before joining Bruce Clay, Inc., Chris worked for 12 years in the online B2B publishing industry, helping architect SEO-friendly best practices and publishing production processes.

Kevin Lee

Kevin is the Founder & CEO of Didit, a provider of search engine marketing strategy, analytics, and modelling producs and services. Kevin’s books include Search Engine Advertising: Buying Your Way to the Top to Increase Sales and The Truth About Pay-Per-Click Search Advertising. A founding board member of SEMPO and its first elected Chairman he is also active on DMA and IAB Committees. Kevin has been quoted in The Wall St. Journal, Business Week, The New York Times, Bloomberg, CNET, USA Today, San Jose Mercury News among others and blogs at KevinLee.net.

Dennis Yu

Dennis is CEO of BlitzLocal.com, an online agency specializing in local lead gen via integrating Facebook advertising with social media marketing, pay-per-click advertising, directory listings, web analytics, and call tracking. Clients include Quiznos, Equifax, Maggianos, Famous Daves, and other national retail and franchised outlets. Dennis is a 14 year veteran of online marketing via Yahoo! and American Airlines. He has spoken at SMX West, SMX Singapore, SMX Sydney, Affiliate Convention, the American Marketing Association, and other venues.

Graham Lawlor

Graham is the Founder of Ultra Light Startups, a networking group for technology entrepreneurs, and ofBrightMap, a business to business directory of companies. Since 2008, Ultra Light Startups has helped over 900 businesses and entrepreneurs build efficient online businesses. He is a frequent speaker at classes, business schools, panel discussions and events related to technology businesses and startups and has been quoted in publications such as BusinessWeek, Entrepreneur Magazine, the Wall Street Journal, and the BBC.

Event Summary

This event will cover:

• What is a social website? What makes a site social?
• Why people participate online. Why some social sites work and others don’t. The psychology of online social interaction.
• An overview of interactive design patterns for online social interaction. What works and what doesn’t. “Paving the cowpaths”
• Visual design that complements interactive design.
• Launch of a social site. Bootstrapping a community from zero users. Getting over the “sign-up hurdle”.
• Monitoring, analytics and design iteration for social interaction.

Moderator:

• Corey Maass, Founder, Gelform

Panelists (alphabetic order):

• Bryan Hamilton, Director of User Experience at Razorfish
• Dan Maccarone, Co-Founder, Hard Candy Shell
• Alex Rainert, Principal, Tinker Studio
• Christopher-Ian Reichel, Director, Product Development – Social Media at Viacom/MTVnetwork

Panel Video

Pitch List

Blog Posts About This Event

Ultra Light Startups to Address Social Sites (by NYConvergence)

Panelist and Moderator Bios

Bryan Hamilton
Bryan is Director of User Experience at Razorfish. He has been complaining about the web for over 12 years and during that time used that energy to push better experiences on unsuspecting clients like Johnson & Johnson, Conde Nast, HBO and Billboard Magazine. He has used social strategies to enhance the bottom line for advertising based sites, increase value of subscription sites and spread knowledge farther on intranet projects.

Dan Maccarone (@danmaccarone)
Dan created Hard Candy Shell with Kevin Kearney after the two completed the strategy and design work on Hulu. At HCS, Dan has worked with clients such as the Wall Street Journal, Saturday Night Live, FourSquare, Gilt Group, Gawker and CBS Radio. He has spent over 12 years developing online business strategies and user-centered design solutions for companies such as NBC, Fox, Universal Music, GE Capital, AOL, Sports Illustrated, Discovery, Scholastic and Chivas Regal. He also served as the Senior Producer for the Digital Club Network, the Web’s first virtual concert venue.

Alex Rainert (@arainert)
Alex consults on mobile, social and emerging technologies at Tinker Studio. He is also currently a creative advisor to kgbweb, a startup developing better ways to discover and consume online content. Alex has been working in the interactive industry for 12 years. He has managed the UX and Creative teams at Schematic NY and co-founded dodgeball.com (acquired by Google in 2005). Alex’s agency clients have included Verizon Wireless, Nokia, HBO, IBM, CBS, Core Performance, Freshdirect and Thomson Reuters. He blogs about innovation in design at everydayux.com.

Christopher-Ian Reichel
Christopher-Ian is Director of Product Development and Social Media, for Viacom/MTVnetworks, where his work spans over 70 major network-related websites. His goal for the past decade has been to develop elegant solutions for complex problems. His previous roles have included time as Director of User Experience for Scholastic Books and for Blockbuster. Christopher-Ian’s past work has included major initiatives for LG Electronics, J.Crew, Credit Suisse, and IBM.

Corey Maass (@coreymaass)
Corey is the founder, Gelform, a web application design and development company focused on user experience, prototyping, usability testing and front-end development. Gelform products include DubFiler, a file distribution system for DJ’s. Corey has designed and run interactive online communities with up to 6000 members. Previous to Gelform, Corey was a lead front-end developer at institutions such as Arc90, Weill Cornell Medical College and Penn State

Event Summary

This event will cover:

• Why is brand important to a tech startups? What difference does a good (or bad) brand make for the likelihood of a startup’s success?
• How important is a good name and domain name for your startup? How do you come up with a good name? When is it worth it to buy a domain name?
• What is PR / public relations? How is it different from marketing?
• What is buzz? How can it be generated and sustained?
• What is the purpose of PR for a startup? Do all startups need to do PR? When in a startups lifecycle should it become a priority?
• What are the services a PR agency can offer a startup? How much should these services cost? When do they become a budget priority?
• How does PR and branding fit into an overall marketing strategy? When should a startup focus on PR rather than other marketing priorities (social media marketing, traditional media, CPC, CPM, etc)
• Interacting with the press – targeting publications/journalists, writing pitches, developing press packets, etc.
• When to hire a PR agency vs. do it yourself.
• What are some success stories of tech startups using PR to their advantage? Horror stories of bad PR?
• What are some success stories of tech startups using effective naming, branding and buzz? Horror stories?

Moderator:

• John Adams, Founder of BizBriefs

Panelists (alphabetic order):

• Todd Barrish, Managing Director of LaunchSquad
• Rachel Honig, Managing Director, G.S. Schwartz & Co., COO & Co-Founder, Digital Power and Light
• Karl Schmieder, Founder of MessagingLab
• Lloyd Trufelman, Founder and CEO of Trylon SMR, publisher of NYConvergence

Blog Posts About This Event:

Catch 22 – Startups and PR (by MessagingLab)

Ultra Light Startups to Address PR, Branding and Buzz (by Huffington Post)

Ultra Light Startups to Address PR, Branding and Buzz (by NYConvergence)

Ultra Light Startups to Spotlight PR, Branding, and Buzz (by Ultra Light Startups)

Ultra Lights Hoping to Take Flight (by John Lee Media)

Ultra Light Startups on Tech PR (by NYConvergence)

Panel Video

Pitch List

Panelist and Moderator Bios

Todd Barrish (@tbar98)
Todd is Managing Director at LaunchSquad New York. Todd has launched and worked with many start up companies that have gone on to become strong industry brands including Vonage, Priceline and blip.tv. His expertise includes brand marketing, high-level media and analyst relations, financial communications as well as corporate reputation and issues management programs. In June 2009, Todd was appointed to the Radford University Board of Visitors by Virginia Governor Time Kaine.

Rachel Honig (@rachellynhonig)
Rachel is Managing Director, at G.S. Schwartz & Co. and COO & Co-Founder, Digital Power and Light. G.S. Schwartz & Co is a 29-year-old, independent, public relations agency, whose clients include both “new chips” and “blue chips.” Digital Power & Light is a consultancy specializing in social media and Web 2.0 communications. Rachel has worked with a variety of technology and other start-up ventures garnering outcomes from organic growth to M&A to IPO. She chairs Women Executives in PR, a special sector of Advertising Women in New York, and sits on the Board of Advisors for the Masters in Corporate Communications program at Baruch College.

Karl Schmieder (@karls_mlab)
Karl is co-founder and C.E.O. of MessagingLab, a NYC-based communications firm focused on helping technology companies tell their stories. Karl is an award-winning writer, recognized for his ability to translate hard science into understandable and actionable marketing strategies. He has provided naming consulting services to several start-ups and Logitech, Oddcast, OpenWave and Yahoo! He is also the publisher of the Bio-Marketing newsletter.

Lloyd Trufelman
Lloyd is Founder and CEO of Trylon SMR, a New York-based digital media PR firm, and publisher of NYConvergence, a digest of digital media technology news for the New York area. He has developed and implemented numerous awareness and brand-building campaigns for startup and established technology, media and telecom industry clients nationwide since 1990. Formerly with MTV Networks, Howard J. Rubenstein Associates, CBS and major political campaigns, Trufelman is a member of The Partnership for New York City and a graduate of American University’s School of Communications.

John Adams (@bizbriefs)
John is the founder of BizBriefs, a strategic social media content planner and consultant who guides companies through the Web 2.0 arena while providing meaningful content. John was most recently the Director of Editorial Services for Storm Exchange, a news source for weather-driven businesses, where he produced podcasts, radio pieces and industry news stories. John is also a blog designer with extensive journalism experience who has reported, produced or anchored for various media outlets including: NBC Universal, Institutional Investor, Cox Enterprises, and Media General.

Ultra Light Startups is proud to be a Network Partner of Microsoft’s BizSpark program for startups.  BizSpark is hosting its first New York BizSparkCamp on Thursday and Friday January 28 and 29.  This is a BarCamp-style “un-conference” focusing on Windows Azure (Windows in the cloud). The program is free and features ½ day of training, 1 day of active prototype/development time, and ½ day for packaging/finishing and reporting out to a panel of judges for various prizes.  The benefits include:

• Chance to win cash prize of $5000
• Nomination for BizSpark One (an invitation only program) for high potential startups
• Learn and build new applications in the cloud or use interoperable services that run on Microsoft infrastructure to extend and enhance your existing applications with help of on-site advisors
• Get entrepreneurs coaching from a panel of industry experts
• Generate marketing buzz for your brand
• Create opportunity to be highlighted at upcoming launch

If you’re interested in attending, just download and complete this application form and return to Sanjay Jain of Microsoft or Ultra Light Startups (a BizSpark Network Partner)

I hope to see you there!