Veezyon

Last week was hectic! Brad Feld hosted two “Beers with Brad”, one in Albuquerque and one in Santa Fe; participated the Open Coffee meeting in Los Alamos; had a peak at the first supercomputer to attain a petaflop/second; and finally he was a panelist at the NNM CONNECT’s Springboard Program.

He began his NM trip by driving straight from Boulder to Albuquerque. At Blackbird Buvette (make sure to check out Geeks Who Drink) he chatted with us almost for three hours. There were about 20-25 of us. The size of the group was perfect for a lively discussion and Brad engaged everyone, not surprisingly I forgot to take a picture.  Next morning, Brad met the Los Alamos crowd, and in the evening he hosted his second “Beers with Brad” in Santa Fe. There were over 50 people at the Santa Fe Complex, it was a blast. This time I remembered to take a picture (my apologies for the poor quality image).

In Santa Fe, Brad had a long Q&A session. Most of the questions were about creating a vibrant tech community. Brad talked about his Boulder experience and how they got where they are today. I was very happy with those questions because it proved, at least to me, that we are serious about creating a unique technology culture in Santa Fe and Albuquerque. At the beginning of the event, Brad mentioned that he was going to share his thoughts about his NM experience, but got sidetracked by questions and ran out of time; maybe he saved his observations for his blog. I am hoping that he will stop by more often and, in addition to art, he will be on the lookout for cool technologies and companies.

I met Brad in 2007 at the Defrag conference in Denver, CO. And since then I have been relentlessly inviting him to New Mexico but we just could not make it happen due to his hectic schedule. Finally stars are aligned and he is visiting New Mexico next week. Brad is being incredibly generous with his time. He is going to host “Beers with Brad” in Albuquerque on March 31, Wednesday between 5.30PM and 8.00PM. The next day, April 1, he will check out the Los Alamos National Laboratory and attend the Open Coffee meeting at Los Alamos Research Park between 10.00AM and 12.00PM. Same day he is hosting yet another “Beers with Brad” at the Santa Fe Complex, between 5.30PM and 8.00PM. Too much coffee, too much beer and too much fun!

For those of you, who don’t know him, he has been an early stage investor and entrepreneur for over 20 years. He is the author of highly respected and popular blog, Feld Thoughts, which took the fourth place in Top Ten VC Blogs list. Please visit his blog and read his full bio here.

Brad is not your traditional VC. He is very approachable, he has been an entrepreneur (an instant hit amongst entrepreneurs), and he is taking on really important issues for the entrepreneurial community, such as The Startup Visa Act and standardizing Seed Financing Documents.

Let me try to explain why I am really excited about Brad’s visit to New Mexico. Visits by renowned entrepreneurs and investors are vital for regions those are trying to create a sustainable startup ecosystems. Networking events that they attend motivate and connect entrepreneurs, investors, state officials, service providers, academicians, and researchers. New Mexico has been testing many regional economic development initiatives, and as expected it is taking time to figure things out and carve a niche. Silicon Valley was not created in a year. San Diego did not become the biotech and wireless cluster with some magic legislation. When I first came to New Mexico from San Diego in 2001, there was not much happening. Few local VC firms, less than a handful of serial entrepreneurs, no professional service infrastructure for high growth startups, and the list goes on.

Today, we have plenty of Venture Capital firms in the state, an active angel investor group along with tax benefits for angel investors, exciting startups, experienced executives, two increasingly active federally funded research and development centers, Los Alamos National Laboratory and Sandia National Laboratories, and the list goes on.

Brad’s visit will give us a chance to get together, talk about cool things we are doing here in New Mexico, and get some reality check on our projects. Please try to show up to at least one of these events, here are the logistics:

March 31^st, “Beers with Brad”, Albuquerque

April 1^st, Open Coffee, Los Alamos (AM)

April 1^st, “Beers with Brad”, Santa Fe (PM)

Last week I attended the Open Coffee event at the Santa Fe Complex. We had a good crowd and it was fun to see friends and meet with new people. Since we launched our company there, it is pretty difficult for me not to like an event taking place at the Santa Fe Complex. I am not sure when and where the next Open Coffee will take place, so if you would like to get a notification become a member here. Below are couple of poor quality pictures that I took with my BlackBerry, enjoy and see you next time!

I believe many of you will agree with me that networking events provide tremendous value for startups. I am a huge believer in face-to-face interaction when possible.  Local networking venues create opportunities to form partnerships, get to know future employees/employers (who knows right?), to test concepts, to better understand current technology trends, you name it.

However, social gatherings are especially important in technology regions, which are just mapping out their human capital and local resources, such as the Santa Fe/Albuquerque area.

I attended the BarCamp Albuquerque 4 this weekend. You can search for “#abqbarcamp” on Twitter to learn what went on. It was a small group in an intimate setting.  I enjoyed every minute of it and learned a lot. There were exciting presentations about HTML 5, Collecta real-time search engine, web design fundamentals, Google Analytics, ArtSpark, Google App Engine, and more.

I am 100% sure that BarCamp Albuquerque will get bigger as more people will talk about it. Reid and Chris did a great job of organizing and handling the details and our host Eric opened the doors of UNM ARTS Lab to us.

I think we need more events targeting various segments of innovation and technology crowd in the region.  Here is a list of the networking events in Albuquerque and Santa Fe region.  The list captures most of the main venues; feel free to add more in comments.

-          Coronado Ventures Forum : All things Venture Capital, Entrepreneurship, Technology

-          Ignite NM : We  presented our thoughts on future of learning at an Ignite event, you can view the presentation here

-          BarCamp Albuquerque

-          Webuquerque

-          Animotion NM : Everything animation & motion graphics

-          ABQ WebGeeks

-          New Mexico Technology Council

-          Open Coffee Club : Informal gathering time & place for NM entrepreneurs, VC’s, and related people

-          NNM Connect : Organizes various events