Last night, Dart and Greenhorn teamed up to organize a #flashparty to try to get all the young entrepreneurs out for a night of socializing. About 20 young entrepreneurs and friends came by Clery’s to share a few drinks and catch up.
A few random thoughts:
1) Strengthening connections:
I had the chance to catch up with quite a few friends I hadn’t seen in a while, which was great. It was also really fun to spend a few minutes talking to friends in the community and not have it be entrepreneur related. Things like Wingman’s straws puzzle, talking about sports and beers was a welcome break from the daily entrepreneur game.
2) Making new connections:
I met Matt Lauzon from what was Paragon Lake, but is now Gemvara. It was really interesting to talk to him about some of the things they’re doing with their designer community and the Highland Capital program he went through. Quite a few of the others that came out met people they didn’t know very well.
3) Can’t help but be productive:
I walked away with a number of solid entrepreneur-related business items that are going to be very helpful in the next few weeks. As Laura Fitton said at her birthday party and Jennie White reported on at BostInnovation, Boston needs to have more parties. As relaxing and fun as last night was, everybody was still talking about business at times and making some valuable, actionable connections.
4) Lessons Learned:
- Being the broke, bootstrapping entrepreneurs we are, we got some pitchers thinking it would save us some money. Of course, when the end of the night came, sorting out who drank what and a few people had left was a bit of a pain to coordinate. Definitely going to have everyone get and pay for drinks individually next time.
- Much like the general community, except for a couple girlfriends and wives, it was a very male-dominated gathering. Future iterations will work harder to address this.
- Most people didn’t come out until 9pm…we thought we’d start hanging out earlier with GreenhornTV, but that didn’t really come together.
5) There will be a next time…
There were definitely plenty of good results from the event last night and so we’ll definitely try to continue to do these likely about once a month. If you have any ideas or feedback on how to make the next one better, let us know. Until then…stay tuned to dartboston.com, @greenhornboston and @dartboston for announcements of future events like this.
Damn, can’t believe I missed this! And wow, Matt Lauzon turned out for it, that’s pretty cool. Hope to read about more of these, and maybe even turn up for one later this year.
We’ll be sure to spread the word far and wide when the next one is.
-Jason
Yes, more parties are a must. I am all for networking, but I have made the best and most valuable connections at these “parties.” Instead of worrying about connecting with every human being in the entire room or feeling overwhelmed and sticking with who you’re comfortable with, you can relax and have a conversation. We don’t need name-tags and a cash bar to meet people. Let’s plan more of these, the flash party sounded fun. Thanks for the shout-out Jason.
Jennie-
I’ve found my networking has gotten much better when I switched to sticking to a good conversation when I find it. There are still times that you just lack anything in common, but in general, it’s great to make a strong connection with someone. It’s those follow ups that really turn into something great.
Thanks,
Jason