1. The place was packed. When I heard about it, I assumed it would be 100-200 folks, some booze, food, etc. Last count I heard was that there were 750 people in attendance. I have to tell you, it seemed like more. It took place in one of the Palace Hotel Ballrooms, and there was not much elbow room inside there at all.
2. No surprises on the attendees: lots of VC's, bankers, start-ups, tech companies, reporters, etc. running around. Kudos to Rafat. In a short period of time, his blog is reaching a lot of influencers. Not an easy trick.
3. I ran into lots of name tags last night. Note I say "name tags", not "faces", because when I walk the room at these things find myself identifying folks by the names tags they wear, not looking at their faces. This becomes embarrassing when I run into someone I know and recognize them only after reading their name. Ugh.
4. Speaking of attendees, for some reason it bugs me when people who aren't working make up titles for their name tag. For instance, I saw a bunch of Stanford Bus. School folks running around with name tags that had their names on them followed by "Stanford Business School". Another person I saw had his name followed by "Entrepreneur." To be clear, I think its cool that they're at the event, and I'm always happy to network with anyone. But for whatever reason, I find it odd when people do that.
5. The only downer was the $9 beers. Topix paid a decent chunk of change to be a Gold Sponsor, so you'd think that would score us a drink ticket or two. No such luck. Oh well, $9 beers probably kept me from drinking to many...which is a good thing.
6. I like our PR firm. They were out in force at this event, and they seemed to be talking us up alot. I know, you would think that this is standard practice for a PR firm, but, trust me, its not. Sometimes it's tough to get your PR firm to even mention you, as opposed to their other clients. In any event, these guys do a good job. Besides, Scott was rocking a purple velvet jacket at the event - which is all good.
In any event, a worthwhile event that was pretty fun too - and I'm not just saying that because I got free parking at the hotel...