Who are we?

The cost of launching a tech venture is continually falling, due to a large number of interrelated technical, social, and financial factors. There are many recent examples of startups that successfully capitalize on these factors to reach profitability and multi-million dollar valuations in a very short period of time with minimal capital investment. On the other hand, many entrepreneurs spend a great deal of time and money on ventures that never produce a return. The quicker and cheaper an entrepreneur can launch a project, the quicker he can test it in the marketplace and the quicker he can determine whether it is worth further investment, or whether to move on to the next project. Ultra Light Startups is a group of entrepreneurs who explore these perpetually evolving factors and refine techniques to launch technology ventures - minimizing cost and time associated with testing ideas in the marketplace.

What are the characteristics of an Ultra Light Startup?

• Aim to achieve profitability with little or no external funding
• Have low permanent headcount, low overhead, low budget
• Operate as ‘virtual enterprises’ (outsourcing, partnerships)
• Use off-the-shelf and open-source software and platforms rather than build from scratch
• Use cloud/network computing rather than owning hardware
• Maximize efficient use of viral/guerilla/social marketing
• Any other low-cost, high-flexibility techniques

What kind of events do we host?

Entrepreneurs Forums. Monthly meetings of 30-50 tech entrepreneurs where we share ideas, network, and participate in discussions about topics of interest to individuals starting lightweight tech ventures. Typically, this takes the form of a speaker, an exercise, or interactive panel discussion related to a particular "ultra light" startup technique.

What makes us different?

There are many tech entrepreneurs groups out there today. Ultra Light Startups is different in three ways:

• "Ultra Light" Focus. We are the only group focusing specifically on low-cost, high-flexibility techniques to launch tech startups. We are dedicated to perpetually streamlining the process of launching successful technology startups.
• Content. Many tech meetups are nothing more than a group of people who (theoretically) share an interest, standing around the same room. Our events have excellent content - speakers, panelists, moderators, presentations, etc. All of our events are fully participatory and interactive - designed to maximize the return on the entrepreneur's time.
• Filtered for Entrepreneurs. Most technology meetups are a diverse mix of entrepreneurs, employees of larger companies, contractors, freelancers, salespeople, recruiters, and anyone else who feels like showing up. Our unique format and ticket price structure maximizes the proportion of attendees that are legitimate technology entrepreneurs. This creates a high-disclosure forum where everyone is a decision-maker and high-value relationships are created.