Roughly three dozen entrepreneurs and innovators turned out for the inaugural StartupSac Happy Hour at The Golden Bear in Midtown Sacramento Tuesday evening to get their startup questions answered by veteran entrepreneur Sonny Mayugba. The concept for the event was simple; an informal, friendly gathering where a veteran startup founder or innovator answers questions from the audience – essentially an interview where a group of entrepreneurs asks the questions rather than just me asking the questions.
This simple idea is something I’ve been wanting to try for about a year, but the question of whether entrepreneurs would find value in it was far from certain, at least in my mind. Based on the turnout, the engagement of the audience, and a quick poll at the end of the event, the answer seems to be that yes, there is value in the idea. If you weren’t able to attend I was able to capture audio of the event with my portable audio recorder and it’s available as a podcast linked below. It’s not the greatest audio quality but it should be good enough to get some good insight and advice out of it. Note, I’ve marked the podcast as explicit as it contains some colorful adjectives here and there.
Subscribe to the StartupSac podcast on iTunes
Thanks to Sonny Mayugba for generously donating his time and experience for this event. Thank you Golden Bear for hosting us! Thank you to all the Sacramento founders, innovators, and entrepreneurs who came out for this inaugural event. Stay tuned for details about the next StartupSac Happy Hour which will most likely take place the last week of February. Date, venue, guest entrepreneur are all TBD at this time.
Below is a selection of a few tweets from the event from Rich Foreman, Laura Good, and myself.
Our guest @SonnyMayugba is taking questions at #StartupSacHappyHour @Goldenbear916 pic.twitter.com/bPmRtSYfit
— Startup Sac (@sacstartup) February 1, 2017
“@Jason taught us to be product 1st, everything else after.” @SonnyMayugba on what he learned at Launch Incubator #StartupSacHappyHour
— Laura Good (@goodlaura) February 1, 2017
My 1st #startup was a huge failure but a big learning experience – @SonnyMayugba #startupsachappyhour
— Rich Foreman (@ApptologyCEO) February 1, 2017
After the first @requestedapp MVP, @SonnyMayugba & team quit jobs to build the product. It was 8 mo b4 investment cap. #startupsachappyhour
— Laura Good (@goodlaura) February 1, 2017
I raised our first round of funding by working my local network – @SonnyMayugba #startupsachappyhour
— Rich Foreman (@ApptologyCEO) February 1, 2017
#Sacramento needs #founders to create great products and great companies – @SonnyMayugba #startupsachappyhour
— Rich Foreman (@ApptologyCEO) February 1, 2017
My 1st investor pitch deck was 80 slides. @Jason and the Launch Incubator taught me to do it better in just 4 slides. #startupsachappyhour
— Laura Good (@goodlaura) February 1, 2017
Bravo @SonnyMayugba on giving a great Q&A to the #sacramento #startup community #startupsachappyhour pic.twitter.com/Do9bc8Os8U
— Rich Foreman (@ApptologyCEO) February 1, 2017
Thanks @SonnyMayugba, @Goldenbear916, & Sac entrepreneurs for a great first #StartupSacHappyHour Great questions. Great answers. #StartupSac pic.twitter.com/uMx1wTbP9z
— Startup Sac (@sacstartup) February 1, 2017