Last night I attended the first ever interdisciplinary meetup for the Columbia Venture Community. I’ve written before about how the Columbia entrepreneur community has some maturing to do so I was certainly excited to be a part of this event.

My initial impression is that Mark Davis has addressed many of my concerns about the Columbia entrepreneurial community in one fell swoop. This event brought together alumni and students, all of the schools, entrepreneurs at a variety of levels, and had a very NY Tech vibe to it. Not a bad first meeting.

After the event I was speaking with the creators of MyOffice about how to improve the event, and the one thing we kept coming back to was the need for feedback. (Isn’t that the great thing about entrepreneurs? They’re always looking for someone to tell them they’re wrong. They’re always looking to improve.) I have a few ideas to make the CVC events better, and in the spirit of one of those ideas, feedback, here’s my assessment of the companies that presented:

ThisTechnology

ThisTechnology has created a system that will bring internet style banner ads to television. I think most people harp over the fact that their platform will add advertisements to their television screens, but I don’t really worry about that. I’ve seen this style of advertising overseas so I think it’s only a matter of time before it becomes the norm here. I don’t claim to fully understand how this platform works, but I can see the end product.

Jeff’s presentation was professional but shaky because he rifled through his speech and his slides. Ultimately, he showed his product and you got it. The existing partnerships, staff composition (12 people full-time, 3 people part-time, and 1 person over-time — great line), and experience were encouraging. What’s less encouraging is that I can’t seem to find their website in a search.

SocialDough

Social Dough is an engagement advertising platform. It guarantees engagement for advertisers, publishers, and content consumers, everyone makes money and saves money.

SocialDough seemed to have a bit too much figured out, but not too much figured out — if that makes any sense? They had a 6 year revenue projection, but no developer. I wasn’t sure how it worked, but I still remember a PowerPoint slide with a 2000% increase.

I think SocialDough is doing the right thing by getting out there and presenting their idea, but I can’t tell if this is anymore than an idea at this point. Derek and his partner should really focus on rounding out their team and building their product, less on excel noise and buzzwords.

MediaMerx

MediaMerx has created a platform that distributes premium video to emerging markets. The point of the pitch was simple: there is a growing affluent segment in emerging markets that has money to spend on what we’re selling them. Brilliant. They could be selling designer handbags to this segment and it’d be a good idea. Trade your designer handbag shipping issues for broadband issues and you have MediaMerx.

Tejpaul Bhatia could have given this presentation in his sleep. He clearly laid out his company and transitioned well into several demos of his product. As one of the creators of ESPN 360, I’m confident he knows the industry well and shows it during Q&A.

Who Tours

Dave Smith is a product guy, and I loved it. He barely stood up to acknowledge the crowd before sitting to his product demo and living the “Show don’t tell” mantra. He walked us through WhoTours, a smart concert search engine. WhoTours can use your iTunes library to search the internet for concerts you’d enjoy. Sort of. The demo had a bit of hitch, but given Dave’s passion for the product I have no doubt it’s something he’ll fix.

This is the most enjoyable review to write because I have something to play with at home and there’s an actual product to talk about. I think the UI could use a bit of a reworking, but they have a great homepage graphic to work from.

Dave wasn’t prepared to and didn’t know how to answer some of the financial questions in the crowd. Great. That’s why he was there. It was great to see him use the Q&A to survey the crowd for revenue ideas.

Snooth

Snooth has created the worlds largest wine community social networking website. Their recommendation system is comprehensive with forums, ratings, connection to stores and distributors, and a variety of search filters. It’s a fun website that even a non-vino can appreciate with a pleasant, interactive experience that is both well branded and easy to navigate.

Philip James presentation was hampered a bit by IE6. He handled it well and stayed away from problem spots on the site, but his next purchase should probably be an adapter for his Mac so he doesn’t have to demo with IE6 again. Snooth sounds like a company that has targeted a niche, is iterating their site, and is growing.

All in all, this was a great step in the right direction for the Columbia Venture Community. I was impressed with the presenters. The group has the potential to grow and the opportunity to do so. To be successful, it will need to be prepared to support the needs of undergraduate early entrepreneurs to VCs, but I’m looking forward to seeing how this goes.

Posted in Columbia, Events