TechCrunch Boston – In Review

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Michael Arrington introducing the event  More Pictures

Friday night was the first ever TechCrunch Boston event, held at The Estate nightclub. After a long day at work, starting at 5:00am, I finally made it to the event at 7:00pm and was amazed at how many people were there[800]. As soon as I walked in, I noticed that there was an open bar on TechCrunch’s tab, as well as a demo pit for a few startups, such as Moola. Moola is a new startup site, where you challenge your friends to game favorites, such as “rocks, pappers, scissors” and earn money from each win. Each user starts off with 1 penny!

I met a few Harvard students, who were interested in personal branding, but were more concerned about getting drunk and linking up with venture capitalists. Walking down the stairs from level 2, I bumped into Don Dodge of Microsoft, who had helped me with my book a few weeks ago. I also found the usual Boston Social Media Moguls, Scott Monty, Chris Brogan and Jeff Glasson [Perkett PR sponsored the event].

My endless search for Michael Arrington concluded, when I saw him in a corner getting bombarded by a few entrepreneurs, which happened basically all night. When he saw me the first thing he said was “thanks for breaking Mozy to us.” He knew I worked at EMC, who had acquired Mozy and TechCrunch announced the purchase on their blog. I also plugged a lot of my personal branding work and he decided to do a short podcast to remember who I was. He seemed more interested in the after party than anything.

Personal Brand of the Event

The highlight of my evening was my talk with Heather Harde (CEO of TechCrunch), who I feel was the personal brand of the event. This woman was approachable, energetic and ensured the event was a success. David Aronoff, a partner at IDG Ventures was listening in as well. Our conversation started off with Heather and David saying “EMC is clueless when it comes to social media” and “what is personal branding.” By the end of the conversation, they both understood personal branding, and were excited about what EMC was doing in that area. Also, it seemed Heather wanted to hire me and David wanted to invest in me, which I thought was funny. Either way, it was a great conversation and I truly commended them for pulling the event off in Boston.

Picture of Dan Schawbel

Dan Schawbel

Dan Schawbel is the Managing Partner of Millennial Branding, a Gen Y research and consulting firm. He is the New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestselling author of Promote Yourself: The New Rules For Career Success (St. Martin’s Press) and the #1 international bestselling book, Me 2.0: 4 Steps to Building Your Future (Kaplan Publishing), which combined have been translated into 15 languages.

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