Last week was the latest Chicago Beta. ~40 Chicago entrepreneurs gathered together to talk shop, get advice, and catch-up with one another.
Three new Chicago start-ups gave a 60 second pitch:
- SocialWare - A social networking portal application that can be easily customized and skinned for your group
- PeerSight - Join a peer group of other entrepreneurs that will meet regularly for structured facilitation sessions, similar to YPO or Vistage, but it happens entirely online
- TasteVine - You input your wine preferences and the food you’ll be eating and receive recommendations.
The audience’s favorite? …TasteVine
(Text message voting powered by Interactive Mediums)
And Chuck Tempelton, the founder of OpenTable.com told his story about how the company was built from idea to the market leader it is today. Fantastic story.
Lots of great conversation, a few of my takeaways:
- The Facebook Platform is hot. You can watch Mark Zuckerberg’s announcement. If you’re already doing development in this space, let me know.
- Leo Capital Holding, the local VC firm, is looking for investment opportunities in mobile companies
- An upcoming tech event is being put on by 606tech called Web Ascent
Add your comment with other interesting takeaways…
ADDED 6/23: Video of the pitches:
I know of another great social network that just recently came to Chicago. It’s kind of in the Facebook space, as a social network for 20-somethings, but its more focused on the local community and works to connect its members by getting them away from the computer to offline events.
The site’s called Going.com and it already has 11,200 members even though it just came to Chicago two months ago. I encourage you to check it out!