LaunchUp.org is Barn Raising for Entrepreneurs.™ We facilitate dynamic and energetic monthly events filled with entrepreneurs, aspiring entrepreneurs, and startup junkies. We work hard to engage and leverage the existing ecosystem of entrepreneurship with our community focus. We provide help, resources, and support for risk takers, doers, and makers of things.

Entrepreneurs + Community + Energy < 90 mins = Awesomeness

LaunchUp #8

We’ll be hosting our 8th Launch Up at the Historic Fifth Street School in Las Vegas on January 9th 2013. The lineup of speakers is spectacular and we’re expecting a large crowd! You should arrive early because the first 300 people who arrive to the event will be given a copy of Brad Feld’s new book “Startup Communities: Building an Entrepreneurial Ecosystem in Your City“. Brad will be signing them before and after for anyone who would like to get their copy signed.

The Lineup

Amp Session: Brad Feld

In the Weeds: Jack Porter

Presenting Companies:

Downtown Podcast
Presenter: Dylan Jorgensen, Executive Producer/Host

Downtown Podcast is a weekly video podcast where host Dylan Jorgensen documents a citywide revitalization project unlike any other.  Built on a philosophy of engineered serendipity, Zappos.com CEO Tony Hsieh is betting big that this unique approach to rebuilding the physical structures and cultural glue of a once forgotten downtown Las Vegas will forever change the way we think about cities.

The host Dylan Jorgensen is CTO and Founder of TicketCake.com, the 7th company funded by the VegasTechFund, a branch of the Downtown Project’s $350 million revitalization effort. Dylan brings locals and visitors in each Sunday to explore this exciting city-sized experiment.

DrinkBoard
Presenter: David Leibner, CEO / Founder

DrinkBoard enables mobile gifting for the hospitality industry. Our platform provides customers and merchants with the opportunity to enjoy and capitalize on one of our oldest societal traditions — gift giving. Our goal is to create a mobile gifting market place made up of the coolest and most distinguished bars, restaurants and hotels. The DrinkBoard platform differentiates itself from mobile payment and mobile couponing by supporting local merchants at the full retail price of their products and services. One of the biggest drivers of both hospitality business and gifting is special occasions and DrinkBoard is at their convergence, enabling a new type of gift giving and a new opportunity for hospitality merchants. With almost 1 million birthdays a day, over 100 million anniversaries a year, 3 million babies being born and millions of college graduations each year, DrinkBoard gives the world the ability for someone to say “congratulations buddy, this one is on me”.

Our Events:

The format is pretty simple.

Clinics, consisting of:

• For the hour before the main event at certain LaunchUp, we will have experts (Legal, Fundraising, Tech, Design, etc) available for free advice to entrepreneurs and their startups.

90 Minute Main Event, consisting of:

• Amp Session. A Successful Entrepreneur will inspire us, motivate us, and probably make us cry.
• In the Weeds. Dig into a specific startup topic at ground level: Taxes? Legal? Outsourcing? Sales? Marketing? Yep, Yep, Yep, Yep, Yep, and lots more Yep.
• 3 Startup Companies. 7 min presentation, 7 min Q&A. Community interaction and advice for these companies. See companies like these LaunchUp Alumni.

Barn Raising, consisting of:

• Free Food. A man’s (and a woman last we checked) gotta eat.
• Corner Dives. Find one of the presenting startup companies logos on a wall, go to them. Meet them. Offer to help them. Energize them.
• Networking. Until we get kicked out.

Come to LaunchUp#8. And keep coming. It’ll be the funnest and most energetic night you’ll spend about entrepreneurship.