A lot of the talk at October's gathering centered on the current economic crisis and its impact on early stage companies. Sequoia Capital's RIP presentation sent to their portfolio companies also came up in a number of conversations. Yes, it's a tough economy and undoubtedly will be for a while. Beyond the doom and gloom theme of Sequoia's presentation, the core message of being cautious with spending and focusing on how to become cash flow positive are certainly tactics every company should employ.

For those looking for a more "glass is half full" perspective on the current economic times, Don Dodge's recent post is a worthwhile read on why now could actually be a great time to start a company. We're back at Spin Café on Friday, November 14. See you then!

I'm always amazed at the new mix of people that come out to the Open Coffee Club and with the amount of talent that assembles in one room. I also find it interesting that there are so many transplants as well as commuters that make up the mix and are involved in some really interesting companies. It seems as if we have our own melting pot of talent representing both the east and west coast.

One example: Adam Bates, one of the founders of ROCC, who joined us at Spin Café in September. Adam moved to Rochester from Boston where he previously worked for venture-backed MusicMatch, acquired by Yahoo! in 2004. Adam now commutes to his job with another venture-backed on-line music startup based in CA, TopSpin, which is backed by Redpoint Ventures and the Foundry Group.

Benjamin Golub, a developer for CA-based FriendFeed also came out for the first time in September. Founded by former Google staffers, FriendFeed is a great online service that allows users to create a customized feed of the content their friends are sharing across the web, from posts on YouTube to updates on twitter, Facebook or Flikr. Its worth checking out if you haven't already.

Regardless of where people in our tech community have come from or where they may be commuting to, I'm a believer that only good things can come from talented people connecting, so thanks to all who come out to ROCC, and let the networking continue!

Look forward to seeing everyone!

Just a reminder that our next gathering is 5:30pm-8pm Thursday, August 14 at Northfield Food & Drink, 3001 Monroe Ave., Rochester.

This will be in place of our normal Friday coffee meeting.

It looks like we're going to have a good turn out with some new faces as well. Hope to see everyone there.

Thanks to everyone that came out to Spin Café for our July gathering. A couple of highlights...

We heard from Les Fritzemeier, Founder & CEO of Wakonda Technologies, about his recent $9.5 million Series A financing, raised from a syndicate of top Boston VC firms. Wakonda has been working closely with RIT and Cornell University to develop a patent-pending technology for developing low-cost, highly efficient solar cells. Wakonda serves as a very positive example of the types of technologies that can be commercialized from our local universities. Congrats to Les and his team - we hope to see you & hear about your progress at future open coffee club events!

I also had an interesting conversation with Jason, a local entrepreneur who's a corporate engineer by day and working to develop a new online application nights and weekends. He heard about ROCC from a friend and seemed interested in connecting with other tech entrepreneurs in our area. I was thrilled to talk with him, as he's exactly the type of person ROCC is meant to support - smart, driven and looking to make a jump into the entrepreneurial community (actually, he has been involved in a successful startup previously). I hope we continue to attract new participants like Jason that share our enthusiasm for growing Upstate NY's tech community.

For August, we're heading to Northfields, 3001 Monroe Ave., for an early evening gathering. Hopefully the weather will work with us and we can take our gathering outside on the patio. Look forward to seeing everyone then!

Last month's gathering, in concert with the Rochester Jazz Fest, was a great success! Special thanks (again) to Goldman Sachs & Merrill Lynch for sponsoring. A number of familiar faces were there, as well as many new, which was great. A number of interesting business connections were also made, which is even better!

I was excited to hear of some great progress with a number of local companies: Emmi Technologies, Leveractive, Novipella, Sweetwater Ethanol, Sydor Instruments, Techrigy, and others...nicely done guys, and thanks for taking the time to come out during these exciting and busy times.

It was also great to meet Brian O'Shaughenessy, an attorney at Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney PC in VA, who heard about ROCC from Dave Lincoln of Novipella, and decided to join us while he was in town. Brian is from Upstate NY (SU and RIT grad) and focuses on IP law. He seemed very willing to work with local companies, so if you'd like to connect with Brian, let me know.

Several ROCC members mentioned that they really liked meeting in the early evening vs. the early morning - a few of the reasons: "easier to break away", "easier to stay longer", and "just plain easier than early morning" (this from a couple of late night software guys).

Someone suggested alternating morning and evening gatherings every other month. I think it's a great idea, so unless I'm outvoted by the other ROCC organizing committee members, I say we give it a try starting in August - any nominations for an evening venue? For July's gathering, it's back to coffee at Spin Café. Look forward to seeing you then!

This month, we're changing it up a bit...

Rochester Open Coffee Club Members and Members of EO - Entrepreneurs Organization are invited to revel around an open bar and dine on hors d'oeuvres from 5:30pm-8:00pm on Thursday, June 19 in the proximity of the Rochester International Jazz Festival at Monty's Korner (363 East Ave.).

[There will NOT be a regular Open Coffee Club event on Friday]

Food and refreshments are free, compliments of our sponsor, Goldman Sachs. Special thanks to Richard Glaser, Merrill Lynch, for proposing & coordinating this event!

Bring your spouse or significant other downtown to enjoy our wonderful city at its finest. Park on the street near Monty's (the intersection of East and Alexander) or a nearby lot. Parking is plentiful. You will be close enough to walk to the shows, which all take place within a several block radius.

Go to the early shows (6ish) and swing by afterwards or stop by first and go to the later shows (8ish). Boz Scaggs is the headliner at 8pm at the Eastman Theatre, but there are plenty of other choices. There is also a free show, DJABE, on Gibbs St. For those without a week long club pass, tickets for shows are reasonably priced. Go to www.rochesterjazz.com for more info.

Hope to see you there!

The next meeting of the Rochester OpenCoffeeClub is nearing and I just wanted to let everyone know that Cyndy Aleo-Carreira will be introducing her company Profy (http://www.profy.com). I won't spoil her intro, but I can tell you they just got back from the Web 2.0 Expo where they generated some good buzz. Go check out what they have and come hear it directly from Cyndy.

We are of course looking for people to tell us more about their Rochester high tech ventures. I already have a few people in mind but let me know if you have a story to share or know of someone.

Keep spreading the word on the meeting and come join us on twitter as well - http://twitter.com/aaronnewman.

Last weeks meetup had another nice turn out. A variety of people showed up - and some new faces which was great. A few of note:

Martin Edic, internet marketing guru (http://www.supernaturalagency.com/), joined us.

Mark Bocko from the University of Rochester also joined us. Mark has a new compression technology AND a really cool high resolution CMOS images that uses less power. Here's a link to more details:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/04/080401150755.htm

Our guest this meeting was TextWise. Connie Kenneally, CEO of Textwise, gave us some background on the $1 million SemanticHacker challenge. For more details check out their website:
http://www.semantichacker.com/challenge

As well, there are a few people that found out about ROCC through me twittering (http://twitter.com/aaronnewman) and we are adding people to the list (Cyndy Aleo-Carreira over at http://www.profy.com). Nugde me if you are on twitter.

Thanks to Cyndy as well for pointing us to http://opencoffee.ning.com/ which I submitted our club to be officially included.

We are still trying to get some social media people from Kodak to join us. They have a great blogging platform over there (http://1000words.kodak.com/ and http://1000nerds.kodak.com/) and we hope they come see what we are doing. We meet across the street from their building practically ;)

As you can see, the Rochester startup community is alive and kicking. Come join us at our next meeting May 16th, 2008, 8 a.m. at the Spin Cafe.

Ok, so we have actually had 3 or 4 meetings of the Rochester Coffee Club (call them our Alpha & Beta launches), but with our new website AND an awesome turn-out at our March 21 event, I think its safe to say that we have "Officially Launched!..."

A very big "THANKS" (and then some) to Jason Mendelson and Ross Carlson at Foundry Group & founders/patrons of the Boulder Coffee Club for (1) convincing us that this makes sense (actually, that was pretty easy!) and (2) for so generously assisting us with the launch of our website!

ROCC was created by a small group of area high tech entrepreneurs who were inspired by Jason Mendelson's visit to Rochester to keep building momentum in our region's entrepreneurial high tech sector. Based on the energy in the room at our March 21st event, I'd say its working!

ROCC attracts a diverse group of high tech company Founders/CEO's and their guests each month, including entrepreneurs from across Upstate NY and across industries...the mix has also included special guests, including local legend, Dick Kaplan, CEO of Pictometry and even some Boston friends, John Hession from Cooley Godward Kronish and Steve Zamierowski from Deloitte's Tech Venture Group.

Our mission is simple...provide a forum for like-minded entrepreneurs to informally meet, share stories, contacts and strategies, (maybe change it up from time to time to keep it exciting), and most importantly, just keep the momentum going!!!

Hope to see everyone at our next event April 18 - we've invited special guest, Connie Kenneally, CEO of TextWise, to mingle with us & provide some more insight on the $1 Million semantichacker competition...pretty cool!

Deb.