August Meetup in ZOA - The Tel Aviv-Yafo Entrepreneur Meetup Group

How I promised, I publish today with light delay (work routine no left free time at all) short resume of the last meeting of "Tel-Aviv Entrepreneur Meetup Group". This time meeting took place in in ZOA House (founded by Zionist Organization of America) on 28/08/2008. Nice venue, but still small for meeting over 200 people. Sitting on the stairs was not comfortable at all, but was more than compensated by valuable lectures.

The both lectures was filmed and I will post here link to video files, so anybody who will like to refresh his memory or did not attended at all, will have pleasure to see them.

Excellent speeches, both - presentation by Ophir Cohen (Compucall’s CEO,- the sponsor of event) and “Free World Dialup” story by Jeff Pulver. I am not going to narrate here in blog who is Jeff Pulver, - but I like to share my emotion. I have wondered by outstanding speech of Jeff, - not only by “fascinating success life story”, but ability to splash out amount of interesting (at least for me) information in so short timeframe. Several times I catch him on glance to his hand watch… It was looking like he is going to finish, but he just has continue and continue… The warm atmosphere and the light comic style of speech left me sensation of intimate friends meeting.

And once again I catch myself on thinking that big things happen in big country, huge market and almost unlimited opportunities. I agree that here in Israel startups “grows up like mushrooms after rain”, but most of them oriented on American or World market.

Regarding pictures, this time I have forgot my camera at home, so all pictures taken by Nokia mobile phone, - therefore my apologies for pure quality and I post here just a few of them, full set you can find here.









Talking with Gady ( founder of the group) I have figured out that on coming meetings new interesting things going to happen - short presentations of new ventures/ideas for group members (some of them Investors) and live video conference with potential investors from USA. Sounds great, at least it is perfect chance to attend on “live startup workshop” and learn from others how to present, to see reaction of investors, questions they ask, accents they do and etc …

Once again – thanks to all group members and sponsor(s).
See you again on coming events.

Regards
Fabian

The Tel Aviv-Yafo Entrepreneur August Meetup – Tomorrow!

Tomorrow I am going to my second meetup of “The Tel Aviv-Yafo Entrepreneur” group. The agenda is about “A new stronger social networking framework”. What make this meeting unusual? Jeff Pulver - special guest and speaker on event. Looks like it is going to be one of the largest Meetup to date since this group foundation.



Thanks to Gadi, he has found out bigger (payable and sponsored by Compucall) place to allow all of us to participate in this Meetup. Till now about 183 members are approved they participation and it is only 200 places reserved. So, if you are very close to Startup field and feel like you have to be there, you still have a little chance to reserve pace, - just register here, fill in your profile details (very important, otherwise you will not approved) and we will happy to meet you too.

I feel it will be very HOT meeting - new and familiar faces, speeches, non-official discussions, business cards swapping, news about “closed down” and “started up”, ideas sharing, business communications – all of this are the huge opportunities for all of us. Of course I will make some photos, which I will publish here in blog in my small post-meeting reportage. I am sure most entrepreneurs will come armed by questions and offers, and speakers will fire by answers and solutions.
:-)

See you there!
Fabian

Make me happy, or give me a break

On my way to work and back home in Israeli rain I have about 35 minutes free time. Usually I read my mails, some news and blogs. Today I got short message from my ex-colleague with link to new web-project LinQ (runs in Beta release).

Same magic "Q" letter trick used like in famous ICQ brand, where "I seek you" = ICQ.

Here we have – "Link You" = LinQ.

Fresh look and nice design, local oriented social network – one more clone of LinkedIn.

It is not first one oriented for Hebrew speaking folks, - we have met short time before the Mekusharim.

It is good that services like LinkedIn now available in Hebrew, - it is good for Jews. :-)
But I am very skeptic about monetizing ability of those clone projects... (off course it is only my humble opinion). How many more may start-up in near future …? We much smaller than USA, Russia or even Europe (Xing)

- countries where there is some free space for similar clones. But here in Israel, - how much we need for our "huge" Hebrew speaking society?

Most of local IT professionals already have profiles in LinkedIn. Part of connections they have are international… What may do them happy using LinQ? Or what kind of trick may catch them out from LinkedIn or at least to push them create second or third profile in other much more limited network group.

I am not advocate of LinkedIn, they also not ideal and there are to many details they have to tune up, correct and enrich functionality. But some symbiosis of co-operation between 2 or more Linked-Networks may be interesting… Like global LinkedIn with multi-lingual interface networking society with sub-orientation for local interests.

From other point of view - needless to say that one of clones for sure will go out winner from this "bloody clones battle"… So, I like to whish them to be strong, dynamic-minded and do not give up!

Ooops … my station … I have to run …
Cheers
Fabian

Knowing better people around you

While midnight web-surfing and scanning the "Tel Aviv-Yafo Entrepreneur Meetup Group" members profiles, I have found a lot of interesting people, blogs they manage, services some of them provides. Some contacts made for our new venture needs. With my pleasure I am going to share information, which may be interesting for local startup entrepreneurs. Of course it is hard to announce all of them in one single post, but I like to mention some of them, other may be disclosed in later posts.

So, via Boris Nadion's profile I have found that he is the member of small group of 3 (together with Vitaly Kushner and Michael Mazyar) software developers with an impressive list of tools and technologies, named Astrails.
– Tel-Aviv based web consultancy. I liked their last project – BitWine- beta release of web-service which helps

"find skilled professionals in various areas such as Technology, Nutrition, Travel, Relationship, Parenting etc, get to know them in an informal setting, and enjoy their consultation from the comfort of your home".

- service added to my blog "Cofee shops" list – startups and projects I found interesting.

In Liat Vardi's profile I have figured out women driven community for women entrepreneurs. She also has own blog, - informative resource, not only for women's… :-)
I recommend to visit "Venture Capitals" category of her blog with several interviews with representatives of some local VC funds.

- Exploring Carmel Ventures I have found a few coming events, one of them may be very attractive for entrepreneurs - Internet & Media StartUpScale on November 11, 2008, so update your calendars.


And the last for today announce about Garage Geeks, found via "Carmel Venture"- strongly recommended...

Physical & virtual space for multi-disciplinary creative people to meet, innovate and build non-commercial projects that would otherwise may not come to life.

Thats all for today, hope you liked it.

Salute,
Fabian

New venture looking for...

Israel based new venture, focused on dynamic market of Ultra Mobile Personal Computers (UMPC), with an innovative patent-pending concept looking for:

- Consultant with experience in field of Industrial Engineering of PC peripheral Electronic devices

- Angel Investor for first funding round - seed stage.
(Presentation and small video demo showing the concept highlights are available)

You can leave your comments/contact information here or to e-mail: contact@reverseface.com