I need to start off by first thanking Paul and Kady for creating and hosting such a great event. They do a great job of bringing people together with 1 Piazza and the Startup Rockstars demo events.The latest event at Viget Labs went fantastic. We spend so much time chained to a computer trying to get everything just right with our applications that it’s  a huge benefit to get in front of some the brilliant people in the area, show your concept and have a chance to see the flaws you’ve missed or chosen to ignore. It was a lot of fun, and it was great to see some other really cool things being developed.

We had a lot of people asking great questions during our presentation, and the discussions that followed were all very helpful to us. I had a pleasure talking with Michael Mayernick from www.Contribune.org about the challenges of starting a company in the area. I hope to get a Beta Invite to check out his site soon and see what it is all about.

Jonathan Aberman from Amplifier Venture Partners had an impromptu introduction talking about what the current financial crisis means for startups, specifically ones looking to go the route of obtaining VC financing. The general message: It’s not the end of the world, but be prepared for less people getting funded, especially without a proven revenue model or clean exit.

The other Rockstars from the event:

GamerVixens

Christina had a wonderful presentation showing off her site: www.gamervixens.com. GamerVixens is a social network for female gamers. Tackling the social network space is a dangerous target, but they are going about it perfectly. The sexy branding possible with GamerVixens is powerful. I was talking to someone after her presentation that summed it up perfectly: “What is cooler than a chick that plays video games?” The flow in their site was fantastic and their development, with well used ajax, was done phenomenally . It was lightweight, unobtrusive, yet still powerful.

BrandClik 

The guys from Brandclick have a great product with a lot of potential. They have their act together and I fully expect them to become a very big deal, so I’m glad I got to meet them now before they are on the cover of Inc or Business Week Magazines. From what I can tell it works  their site helps marry content providers and advertisers in a very novel and needed way. From an advertisers perspective If your brand, or any other keyword you select, appears on the content sites you have chosen to partner with it will automatically create a link to a site within your domain.

They have a lot put together already, and you can see a lot of avenues they could go down with their concept. They were recently featured in the Washington times here, discussing starting out in the current financial circumstances.

CreateDebate

CreateDebate is a platform for creating and managing debates about virtually any topic. They had a well put together site, and it appeared to have quite a few users. I was hoping to catch up with them after the presentation to hear more, but only met them briefly. Would love to hear more about it next time I have the opportunity.

OurCoupleSpace 

Gary presented OurCoupleSpace very well. OurCoupleSpace hopes to help couples that are having issues with their relationship by utilizing technology to point out the true areas they find important and to better communicate their needs. Obviously with the eHarmony’s of the world, this is a space that has a lot of recent interest and I think it’s a good idea. I wish him the best of luck, and look forward to seeing more of what comes of the project.

I know I know, you were expecting another restaurant review as my next blog post, but this is much more exciting. We have finished the private testing and evDeliv is now  open to the public in Washington, DC. We have over 35 restaurants in the DC area, depending on where you are located. The testing phase went fantastic, and has been acclaimed as the new WAY of food delivery through the greater DC area. To kick off our inaugural season, we will be one of the presenters at Startup Rockstars http://startuprockstars.com/ presented by Vigit Labs http://www.viget.com/.

We are honored to be one of the presenters of this awesome team of new companies. I have had the pleasure of meeting with from Jai from Zippy Jobs http://zippyjobs.com/ at a prior Twin Tech event and was intrigued by his idea to help find jobs for college students. I am excited to hear more about http://ourcouplespace.com/ and the new ideas they bring to the world of online dating and relationships. The Create Debate site http://www.createdebate.com/ was the greatest hour of distraction covering my afternoon (don’t tell Shawn) with a fantastic website and very interesting content just in time for the 2008 Election. I am excited to hear their presentation as well. We look forward to seeing everyone tomorrow at Startup Rockstar and hear of the innovative tools presented for tomorrow’s Internet. So order some delivery food from www.evdeliv.com (come on I had to say it) and make your way to Vigit Labs in Falls Church.