Some guidelines for throwing entrepreneurial social events
As some of you may know, several of the BigThinkrs have been involved with organizing a monthly social event called the “YnR”. These events are typically held during a weekday during happy hours in Midtown, and the distribution list includes entrepreneurs who have gotten to know or sent emails to the organizers. The event has been quite successful, with 30+ people showing up for the last several. As part of a recent effort to include more entrepreneurs from North Atlanta, we have been discussing setting up another copy of the event in various northern locations. As part of this process, I have laid down some of the key guidelines to which I have adhered in developing the original YnR event, and I’m including them here for future reference…
1) Keep it free of charge and in a sort of slightly swanky/loungey setting where it’s not too loud to talk. People are ok paying for their own drinks and finger food (though for some reason I seem to buy a lot of first rounds) which means you don’t need to get any form of sponsorship. Also, many venues will give you great deals for happy hours including free food and drink specials. I haven’t played at all with this at the Globe, but that seems like a nice way of getting free stuff rather than pandering to sponsors. Also, having it at 5:30-7:30 means some people can get there early and beat traffic, and others can come late. We’ve always stayed until 8:30 anyway, and last time a large number of us got dinner after. This may be different up there. I would also recommend having it different days within the week, that way over time you get a good random slice of the entire mailing list showing up, as opposed to only the people who can make it on Wednesdays, for example.
2) Keep it informal, i.e. no lectures or programs or competitions or speeches etc. There are many other things in the city that cater to the more formal side of things (such as GES). Also, I figure that people can kind of talk about whatever they want. It’s mostly a chance to just chill out and get to know other people doing cool stuff in this town and potentially finding team members.
3) It is EXTREMELY important and crucial to this model that the event be as free from vendors / service providers as possible. I say this knowing that some of you are entrepreneurs who provide services, so I’m aware of the possible grey areas. I grant you that there are many situations where it is good for entrepreneurs to meet service providers, but there are lots of events in this city where that can occur. I have been primarily playing it by ear when it comes to who is an “entrepreneur” and who is a “service provider”, but I control things by rotating the time and location of the place, never posting it online, and keeping central control of who receives the email (though it can always be forwarded, when a vendor comes and I meet them, I ask them who told them about it and warn or remove that person). It goes without saying that people who are in the “grey area” should be made gently aware that it is not ok to pester or overtly solicit business from the other entrepreneurs.
4) Post only one email per event on the distribution list. There is a strong urge to use the list and the forum as a way of doing lots of other cool stuff. I think that this urge should be resisted at all costs. If there’s a website, cool, stick all kinds of crap there (except don’t post the time and location of the event there or you will be sorry!)
5) I actually think it works extremely well to have a very low-tech sort of mailing list because it means that people have to know me (or other people I know forward the contact info to me) which is a natural filtering process, and it also means that people have to tell me if they want to unsubscribe. It just feels a lot more personal than other forms of invitation, and I think it makes people more likely to show up. Most importantly, I can surreptitiously uninvite troublemakers without making a big show about it.
6) As far as who should come… I do think the event should pander more to the “Youthful and Restless” than the “Seasoned and Established”. But that being said, I invite lots of people who don’t really fit any particular mold. The important thing is that the people should be the kinds of guys/gals who would be fun to start companies with and have a beer with. The idea is to create lasting friendships and social networks among like-minded people with complementary skills and objectives.
7) Should investors / angels be invited? Sure, if they are entrepreneurial. But not if they sit there and expect people to pitch to them and are unnecessarily critical, I mean, give me a break.
