OPEN SV is proud to announce the Fall Quarter Networking Event for 2013 on October 21st at 6 PM. The event will be held at HP Executive Briefing Center located at Bldg. 20, 3000 Hanover Street, Palo Alto, CA.

Register for the event by clicking here.

Event is Free - Use code q313 to register.

Panelists:

• Tae Heah Nahm, GM, Storm Ventures

• Mark Heyl, Chair of Hopkins & Marley's M&A Practice

• Sudhakar Muddu, VP & GM Cloud & Big Data at VMWare

• Yusuf Safdari, Partner, Pillsbury Law Firm

• Feisal Mosleh, SVP, Kanzatech IP Group

The event will feature a panel with participants listed above on "Creative Exits for Startups" and how Entrepreneurs can still get a valuable payout before they plan their move to chase a new passion. The panel will present a great diversity of thought with an interactive session involving the audience to discuss several interesting ways of ensuring that you and your investors can exit meaningfully.

Some of the questions that we intend to contemplate include:

1. When is the best time to plan out an exit strategy? We examine exits contemplated in the early stages through the later stages.

2. What constitutes the most value in your company, such as the people, intellectual knowledge, relationships or the network. i.e. where are the value drivers, when an acquirer looks at you? Is it the alliances, customers, or intellectual property such as the patents? Or is it the technologies, the products the channels and the management team as well as the operational processes that make your company successful?

3. What are the non-conventional ways to ‘get out of Dodge’ and still get a great payback?!

And there is one more thing...Speed Dating:

We will hold a 30 minute Business Speed Dating session before the general networking and panel, where you can connect to other like minded individuals and see how you may help each other or make a great connection for the future. To take part write in an option "SD" with a short note of who you are looking for such as:

1. A co-founder for a startup idea (Mention Startup Interest Area)

2. Investor for a startup (Mention Startup Interest Area)

3. Looking to invest in a startup (Mention Startup Interest Area)

Importantly, while signing up for this event, be sure to sign up to OPEN SV membership in case you are not a member. This part of the event is only limited to OPEN SV members so if you are not a member, sign up to become one if you are looking for your co-founder, an investor or your next great investment from among entrepreneurs attending the event.

How it works:

Each SD participant gets one minute to present an elevator pitch to their SD partner, sitting opposite them. Notes are made, business cards are exchanged, smartphones are shaken, clicked and bumped. There will be a limit of 30 SD participants… first come first served, so sign up asap. This will be facilitated before the dinner is served at 6:30.

Agenda

6:00 - 6:30 Registration and Speed Dating (Speed Dating is for OPEN SV members only)

6:30 - 7:00 Open Networking/Dinner

7:00 - 7:10 Welcome & Announcements

7:10 - 8:15 Panel Discussion + Audience Q&A

8:15 - 9:00 Networking/Close