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
{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
I agree. It was a great kick off event and a pleasure to engage in conversations on so many different levels. A change of pace from the traditional tradeshow is always welcome.
I also agree LuckyCal is very cool. My favorite part: “Just so we're absolutely clear: LuckyCal NEVER gives out any information from your calendar. And in turn, you'll never see your friends' calendar information. “
I have enough TMI floating around these days so it's nice to see this is just for me. Nice job to all last night!
Absolutely Christine, it was great to meet you in person as well last night. Fun meet up and big thanks to Bobbie for putting it all together. Looking forward to the next one.
Thanks for the Mass Innovation Nights feature, Stuart! (And, more importantly, for supporting our local innovators like LuckyCal.) As I've said before — this event is going to be successful because interesting (and nice!) people attend the event, are open to learning about cool new products AND take the time to tell someone else about them.
Thanks for the Mass Innovation Nights feature, Stuart! (And, more importantly, for supporting our local innovators like LuckyCal.) As I've said before — this event is going to be successful because interesting (and nice!) people attend the event, are open to learning about cool new products AND take the time to tell someone else about them.
Thanks for the Mass Innovation Nights feature, Stuart! (And, more importantly, for supporting our local innovators like LuckyCal.) As I've said before — this event is going to be successful because interesting (and nice!) people attend the event, are open to learning about cool new products AND take the time to tell someone else about them.
Thanks for the Mass Innovation Nights feature, Stuart! (And, more importantly, for supporting our local innovators like LuckyCal.) As I've said before — this event is going to be successful because interesting (and nice!) people attend the event, are open to learning about cool new products AND take the time to tell someone else about them.
{ 1 trackback }