DEMO and VentureBeat come to New York Thursday; looking for bold ideas

New York, here we come!

This is just the latest in a bunch of stops we’re making to major entrepreneurial cities, on the prowl for the most promising technology products we can find to showcase at the upcoming DEMO conference in Palm Springs, Calif.

On Thursday, we’ll be at New York’s 3 Ten Lounge. The first hundred people to show up will receive a free drink. Join me, local entrepreneurs, investors, startup professionals, and DEMO alumni companies for cocktails and conversation. Sign up here.

We’re starting at 5 p.m., and will go to 7 p.m. We’ll then take the party elsewhere, down the road.

Last month, we hit London and Boston, and last week we were in San Francisco and Seattle, where we had several hundred people show up. We’ll be going to Austin and Atlanta next week.

In New York, I’ll also be taking meetings with companies on Friday. As executive producer of DEMO, I’m conversing with entrepreneurs about how DEMO works, and what it takes for a company to launch to the market in a world of increasing noise. DEMO certainly isn’t right for every company as a launchpad. But if a company is looking to grab market share extremely quickly and needs a very loud bang, there are few better places than DEMO.

Unparalleled media attention, corporate development contacts, top investors, and professional event production standards (the Internet works, you get high-definition video, coaching help, etc.) make DEMO different from the rest. That’s why hot companies from Salesforce.com, to VMWare, TiVo, Palm Pilot, Netscape and ETrade have launched there, just to name a few.

I’ve already mentioned how we’re spicing things up a bit at DEMO. We’re extending DEMO’s reach to showcase very early stage companies, called alpha-stage companies, something we debuted at the last DEMO in September. Second, we’re inviting the very best business plans from the nation’s colleges and universities, a new part of the next conference in March. And we’re creating more disciplined theme areas for startups, too. See more in my recent post about this, and more.

Many thanks Invest in France for sponsoring the New York cocktails.

And here are some photos from our most recent meet up in San Francisco:

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People: Jerry Buhlmann