It was a cold Thursday night in New York City, but that didn’t stop a sizeable crowd from coming out to see eight aspiring startups pitch their businesses before a panel of seasoned investors. The prize? A valuable package of startup essentials, including interviews with top NYC accelerators and incubators like DreamIt Ventures and Techstars, […]
Ultra Light Startups
When Disruption Isn’t Enough
Last week’s Ultra Light Startups Investor Forum proved another exercise in highlighting the importance of understanding not just how your company started, but where it’s going. Investors John Ason, Bradley Harrison, Habib Kairouz, and Mediabistro founder-turned-angel-investor Laurel Touby repeatedly asked (and jovially quarreled over) how the evening’s presenting entrepreneurs were turning their ideas into grounded […]
Monthly Pitching Drill Allows Entrepreneurs to Polish Presentations
Ultra Light Startups’ Investor Feedback Forum once again provided invaluable insight on what investors like to hear and the right way to pitch to them. Once everyone was comfortable after grabbing a couple of slices of pizza, Ultra Light Startups’ Graham Lawlor and Mark Caron kicked off the monthly investor forum that allows startups […]
A Newbie in a New World: ULS Takes on Bitcoin
“Your customers are the exchanges. You need to think about them first.” “Presentation is everything.” These were some of the responses that were given by a panel of four venture capitalists to nine startup hopefuls who had two minutes to pitch their business presentation. The focus was Bitcoin and the investor panel included Andrew […]
The 9 Startups that Pitched at Ultra Light Startups May 2013 Investor Feedback Forum
Ultra Light Startups, New York’s oldest startup pitch event, held its monthly investor feedback forum this past Thursday. Nine startups made pitches to panelists Josh Bruno of Bain Capital Ventures, Brian Cohen of New York Angels, Brendan Dickinson of Canaan Partners and Jason Klein of On Grid Ventures. The top three were chosen by the […]
Ultra Light Startups April’s Stellar Lineup – of Investors
“Get practical, actionable feedback from investors. They’ll tell you where your next pivot should be,” claims the UltraLight Startups website. This was certainly true of this month’s ULS: while the presentations themselves were, on balance, less than stellar, the same could not be said of the panel of investors who were generous and spot on […]
February Ultra Light Startups Investment Feedback Forum at NYU
I had the pleasure of attending Ultra Light Startups February Investor Feedback Forum at NYU this past Tuesday. The event was co-hosted by Graham Lawlor and Howard Greenstein and featured pitches from eight startups and an investor panel that included Arie Abecassis of DreamIt Ventures, Jordan Bettman of Bain Capital Ventures, Eliot Durbin of BOLDstart Ventures, and […]
January Ultra Light Startups
Graham Lawlor, founder and host, kicked off his first Ultra Light Startups Investor Feedback Forum of the year with ten – count ‘em – ten pitches. He ended it with a Survey Monkey poll to determine the Best Startup Pitch (field included Glyph, Curioos, Vestorly, Vidaao, NimbusBase, FreshNeck (@lizcwilkes: Was really hoping @freshneck was going […]