On Wednesday morning I dragged myself from bed at 8am (I know, rough life, but I stay up LATE) and followed through on something I’ve been meaning to do for a long time. I drove down into the Redmond valley from my house in Kirkland and attended the Eastside startup open coffee I’ve been seeing on my calendar for the past few months.
Showing up at Tully’s, I realized I probably wouldn’t recognize anyone in the group, and since I was late I scanned the room – assuming one of the small groups of people huddled around tables was probably the one I wanted. I stood in the lobby of Tully’s deliberating over whether or not to take the brute force approach of asking each group of people if they were with the eastside startup open coffee (doesn’t exactly roll of the tongue). Fortunately, before I came to a conclusion I was approached by a friendly guy who turned out to be Derek Del Conte, co-founder of
Photosleeve and creator of a couple iPhone applications on the side. We grabbed a cup of coffee and were joined by:
It seemed like everyone, aside from myself, were regulars and knew each other. There was a lot of joking and lively debate around what defines an entrepreneur or a startup. We also had the chance to give feedback to one founder as to how he might change his detail pages to improve his bounce rate. I found it refreshing to see that the bulk of the attendees not only worked for startups, they were running them!
No business cards were exchanged, but I'm sure I'll see these folks again and I can't wait to hear more about their ventures as they progress. Join in next week, we've got the
details on our events calendar.
Skip It: if you don’t live or work on the Eastside, the drive into Redmond is horrendous in the morning.
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