Last night I had the pleasure of attending the Inaugural Mass Innovation Night at the Charles River Museum of Industry. The night was put on by Bobbie Carlton who bootstrapped the event in 2-3 weeks (Kudos Bobbie, the event was a big success in my mind).
The companies ranged in size from the recently launched to some of the world’s largest IT companies. The industries represented a range of products from consumer driven to high tech.
What I enjoyed about the event was that it wasn't as social media heavy as most that I have attended lately. I got a chance to pitch and talk with some potential clients. In my mind the funniest part of the night for me was when Lotus/IBM tried to sell me on the merits of their "You can't break this, even if you try" server. I'm just not up to baller status on that one guys...when I actually employ more then myself, maybe?
The event was casual — tabletop demos (although some companies used the amphitheater to do a short demo). Lots of networking, chatting and pitching.
A little more IT/Beta heavy then I would preferred but it is fun to have a challenging pitch. I say this because at this point: I'm a start-up's 3rd or 4th hire. You need a solid product before I can begin to break it down and start to market it for you. Otherwise all I can do is be honest and poke holes in the business plan/idea.
The Charter Members of Mass Innovation Nights:
- IBM/Lotus
- Invention Machine
- Lexalytics
- LuckyCal
- Mass High Tech
- Noteflight
- Practical Solar
- Tweetworks
- WiBlocks
- Xelago
This is a damn good idea and it will continue to grow and improve. As a product launching platform this would be great for a smaller company. However, if you do launch here in the future: the product needs to be solid or prepared to get grilled more as time goes on as more marketing/pr people like myself come to scrutinize/pitch themselves to potential clients.
Overall? Great show, I'm looking forward to being at the next one. It's really cool to see all sorts of smart, fun entrepreneurs coming out and demoing their product or making announcements.
Coolest product of the night? LuckyCal. Seriously, go check it out. The thing rocks.
If you enjoyed this post, please consider leaving a comment, showing us some social love or subscribing to the feed to have future articles delivered to your feed reader.
tagged as Marketing, Mass High Tech, Mass Innovation Nights, mass jobs, Mass startups, MIN, networking, PR, Social Media, startup launch
[...] have a lot of time to be messing around with a new machine. I like Stuart Foster’s (The Lost Jacket) characterization of it as the “You can’t break this, even if you try” [...]