An alert about a great event coming up on June 5 at the Microsoft Campus in Mountain View, CA, called “Launch: Silicon Valley,” co-presented by Garage Technology Ventures and SVASE.
I just became aware of a great event coming up on June 5 at the Microsoft Campus in Mountain View, CA, called Launch: Silicon Valley. And I hope to get there to blog about it. If you want to present, you can still apply by today, May 3rd, by just submitting a two-page executive summary. 
The event is co-presented by Garage Technology Ventures and SVASE, the Silicon Valley Association of Startup Entrepreneurs. The latter is dedicated exclusively to helping early-stage entrepreneurs across all technology sectors build successful companies. The event’s theme is “Create the Buzz, Raise the Money, and Build your Business.” It’s actually the second of these events, after a very successful first one in November 2006. Some of the other sponsors of the upcoming event are Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Band of Angels, Sand Hill Angels, The Angels’ Forum, and some other heavies, as you’ll see if you click the link above.
So, if you think you have a cool technology or startup concept and want the world to discover you — and can get to Mountain View — this would be a great platform. It gives you the opportunity to meet, network, and showcase your startup to some key movers and shakers in the Valley. If your application is accepted, you’ll get to present directly to an audience of VCs, angel investors, M&A execs, senior corporate biz dev execs, bloggers, press, and potential business partners. The CEOs of the companies voted “most promising” in each of the six sessions at the event will also receive invitations for two to attend the prestigious Ernst & Young “Entrepreneur of the Year” dinner on June 29 at the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco.
Again, to apply, submit your two-page executive summary by end of day today, May 3rd. Or email LaunchSV@svase.org for more info.
UPDATE: The submission deadline has been extended to May 13.
Richard MacManus published his take earlier, then followed with this one that includes my thoughts and those of two other writers that contribute to R/WW and happened to be at the event. 
Lots of great questions and input from several people. I’m convinced that promoting Minnebar on the GetGo site contributed to the record attendance. The biggest turnout yet for a BarCamp in this country! Yeeeee-haww!!!
Photo: Beers on the roof with event sponsors John Roberts (left) and Harold Slawik (right) of New Counsel plc, and Bill McLeslie of ipHouse. The event wi-fi was awesome — Bill hooked us up with 7 megabits of bandwidth. Gorgeous day in the Twin Cities — the high hit 83 F!
My favorite photo at the event: We start ’em young here in MN. Matt Bauer, ace developer just recruited to MotionBox in NYC (but he didn’t have to move!), shows a developer-in-training how it’s done. Matt had just finished his session on Adobe Flex.
But I was able to bop right into one session before lunch: “Open Source Business Models for Web2.0.” John Roberts, CEO and cofounder of SugarCRM, told us about the non-traditional way his company started: really as a project, then it wasn’t incorporated for almost two years. Funding came even later. “Companies are starting differently these days,” he said. Now, SugarCRM has 100+ employees, 1200 customers in 30 countries, 100,000 users, and 7000 registered developers. How are they 2.0? “We sell subscriptions, not licenses,” he said. “And, as Tim O’Reilly would define it, we trust our users as co-developers.” 
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