VEF Momentum

Make Your Goal Public

Na'im Merchant — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 22:50:44 +0000

At tonight’s event at Nuba, Jon Bixby will be speaking about focusing on the big picture, lessons in leadership and achieving measurable results. It seems only appropriate then, that he’ll be recommending you to make a goal, and make it public.

We’ve got three ideas you can use to make your goal public:

Post your goal as a comment on this blog post
Post your goal on the VEF or VEF Momentum LinkedIn Group pages. A discussion thread has been made for this topic so you can post your goal under the thread “Make Your Goal Public”.
Or for maximum impact, use Twitter! Keeping your goal succinct is probably a good idea anyway. Use the hashtag #MyGoal on Twitter.

We’ll accumulate the best and most interesting goals in put them together in a seperate post.

Emulating Apple Magic

Na'im Merchant — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 21:52:44 +0000

Guy Kawasaki has some great photos and video from the launch of the Macintosh 25 years ago as well as the 25-year reunion several days ago. The two videos at the top with Steve Jobs unveiling the Macintosh and his passionate introduction to the infamous “1984″ commercial are must see videos (see here).

This led me to wonder about entrepreneurs today, and if I can recall the same passion and enthusiasm from an entrepreneur in recent memory that Steve Jobs exhibited over 25-years ago. I couldn’t recall anything – but I’m sure it’s out there. Have you seen an entrepreneur in recent memory, in a pitch or product unveiling, exhibit a level of energy that just made the hair on the back of your neck stand up? If so, let us know we would love to feature it on the blog!

Introducing Fireside Chat with local business leaders

Kerry Liu — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 08:11:54 +0000

We are now launching the next phase of VEF Momentum focused specifically on mentoring and educating young entrepreneurs.

Over the past few months, many of you have given us feedback on what you feel is missing in this city for young entrepreneurs. Namely – substantive, actionable lessons and guidance from established entrepreneurs, professionals and investors. As a result we’ve formed a pilot program called “Fireside Chats.” These chats are a unique and valuable opportunity for young entrepreneurs to spend time with local seasoned entrepreneurs and business leaders in a roundtable like setting.

Each fireside chat will tackle a separate demand driven issue. Our first chat is scheduled to occur on December 10, 2008, and will cover off the foundation building blocks towards a successful start-up. This roundtable discussion will offer actionable and meaningful take-aways that you can implement in your own start-up right away.

We understand this is a valuable opportunity for many young entrepreneurs, however, in order to ensure the fireside chats run smoothly we will only select three to four companies per session. See below for a summary of our first fireside chat details. If you are interested, please read the detailed program attached.

Fireside Chat #1 – “Start-Up 101- Things you better get right”

1) General Corporate Matters

· Due diligence within your own organization

2) Employment and staffing issues

3) Intellectual Property

· Protecting your IP and having the proper legal support

4) Structuring key corporate agreements

· Shareholder Agreements, customer agreements, etc.

Event Details

Date: Wednesday December 10^th, 4-7 pm

Location: TBA

Submission Deadline: Wednesday December 3^rd 8am.

· Note the selected companies will be contacted on Friday December 4^th 8am

· Please do not provide your submission unless you are committed to the event date (Wednesday Dec 10^th)

· Online at: http://vefmomentum.wufoo.com/forms/fireside-chat-submission-form/

Facilitators:

· Jonathan Bixby, CEO of Strangeloop Networks

· Keith Spencer, Partner, Technology and Intellectual Property Group, Fasken Martineau DuMoulin LLP

· See attachment for biographies.