OC's Amazing Startup Events Week - Photos!
This past week may go down in history as a turning point for the Orange County tech startup ecosystem.
We had more events, with more people, partners, community organizations, colleges, investors, sponsors, and friends involved than ever before - all in support of the burgeoning #GrowthOC movement to accelerate our early stage software and hardware technology ventures community.
Congratulations to the organizers and sponsors of these many fine events - your support is making a difference!
The Orange County Startup Council was happy to partner with all these organizations to help promote their community-organizing events:
SoCal Startup Day
Thanks to Funding Post's Joe Rubin and Stephen Silver for organizing the largest OC tech startup event EVER. Over 1000 startup company founders and friends all attended at the OC Great Park!
Panels, exhibitor booths, a pitch competition, and a surprise keynote speech from famed venture capitalist Tim Draper combined for a fun event that validated we really DO have a thriving tech startup ecosystem here in Orange County.
OC FinTech Meetup
Thanks to Timothy Li for hosting the recurring monthly FinTech meetup. Tim's leadership supporting our local fintech startups is even more impressive due to the success of his own fast-growing (and bootstrapped!) fintech company, Alchemy.
Thanks for having OCSC CEO, Scott Fox, as the speaker this month. You can join the OC FinTech Meetup here.
eSports FastPitch
Mayor Steve Jones and the City of Garden Grove are ramping up their support of OC startups, too. Their repeated hosting of events from Black Dog Venture Partners has helped Scott Kelly and Jerry Heikens collect great groups of founders, angel investors, and venture capitalists for their repeated pitch events.
Their first eSports Fast Pitch on Friday was well-attended, including gaming and esports industry startup founders - some of whom even who flew down from San Francisco to Orange County to learn more about OC's leadership in the emerging esports industry.
OC Celebration of Entrepreneurship
JJ Jackson, Barry Lieberman, Keith Pham and a great crew of local executives and academics organized Saturday's conference at Cal State Fullerton's Student Union. This first annual conference was an unprecedented collective effort between Cal State Fullerton, UC - Irvine, and Concordia University.
The program showcased some of the many local company success stories that Orange County entrepreneurs have built, including a great keynote speech by local Ebates.com founder, Paul Wasserman.
MasterMinds OC #34 @ Evonexus
Wednesday night offered local founders another of the OC Startup Council's popular MasterMinds OC Startup Accelerator Workshops.
Bob Genthert of the EvoNexus startup incubator hosted the sold-out crowd for the 34th monthly session of friendly startup founder Q&A, pitch practice, and networking.
Which event was your favorite?
Please COMMENT below to let others know which events you liked the best - and why!
Did We Miss Your Event?
Sorry if we did - there's a lot happening lately! We're just volunteers so can't be everywhere.
Specialized conferences, local meetup groups, workshops, and gatherings of all types of entrepreneurs and investors with varied interests are happening all the time now here in Orange County.
To help get your event covered, please tell us about it.
- Before the Event - Free Publicity: If your event is in Orange County, it is designed to help local technology entrepreneurs and investors, and it is educational (rather than a sales pitch) we're happy to help you promote it FREE for the good of the community. We'll post it on the OC startups news blog and on the OC startup events master calendar, too. Please submit your event details here at least TWO WEEKS IN ADVANCE.
- After an Event: If you'd like to send us a short article profiling the event, its participants, speakers, and sponsors, we'll publish that free, too. Please be sure to include photos we can use to make it pretty. Submit OC tech community articles here.
Congratulations Orange County - You're Growing Up!
The OC Startup Council is dedicated to helping accelerate the success of all the players in our local tech startup ecosystem.
Join the OCSC to learn more, participate in our publicity opportunities, attend our public and members-only events, and build your business here, too! #GrowthOC