Damien Mulley

Only had time to write this now. Things have been a bit mad. So the Pitch Forum organised by EI on Tuesday went very well despite some annoying things which will be discussed properly in a future post. Enterprise Ireland really pulled out the stops and some very heavy hitters in Silicon Valley and American business turned up. The new Irish ambassador also was present and gave a speech.

Conrad Burke of Innovalight moderated the event which included a 45 min panel discussion on all things VC and business. The panellists were Richard Irving, Tim Danford, Patrick Ennis and Dino Vendetti with a guest appearance from Aidan Connolly of Idiro. Aidan then went back into the audience while the remaining panel listened to pitches from Jan Blanchard, Hélène Haughney, Alan O’Rourke, Marcus Mac Innes and Joe Drumgoole.

I’ve done some videos of the event, please forgive the quality.

First is Jan Blanchard doing his pitch:

Jan doing Q&A

Marcus Mac Innes from Pix.ie

Hélène Haughney from Nubiq

Alan O’Rourke from Toddle

Joe Drumgoole from Putplace – Pitching

Joe Drumgoole from Putplace – Q&A

Wow. Day 4 of Paddy’s Valley was again amazing. Diego from Ning was most welcoming and then Marc Andreessen entertained us with this thoughts on business, social networks and the mobile space. There is no way in hell the first Paddy’s Valley will ever be bettered. 2am here and still wide awake buzzing from today. Microsoft were great too. Would you believe I skipped lunch at the Googleplex? 🙂

Ross Mayfield from Socialtext just gave more advice to us in 90mins than any of us Paddys could have learned back home in months/years. Had we paid a consultant we’d have paid 1000s if not 10s of 1000s for his frank and honest advice. Day 3 of Paddy’s Valley and after meeting Facebook this morning and then Ross, we’re smiling big smiles and buzzing from the welcome. The people on this side of the pond are amazingly generous and open.

Day 2 of Padbrother upped the drama levels as Padbrother set a challenge to the Benchd team to unlose their car keys. A frantic few hours of searching the locality and tearing apart a bedroom ended with success and just in time too for the next challenge in San Francisco.

After a quick interlude in the Padbrother house where everyone met Brian Deane from Ceatec and then headed to lunch in the Cheesecake Cafe, everyone then set off to San Francisco for the Scoble challenge.

This challenge involved the Padbrother contestants dressing to the nines to see who was the most fashionable. Touristr’s Jan Blanchard being French had an instant advantage though lost serious points by wrapping his new iPhone in a gaudy red jacket. Steve would not be impressed.

Later today on Padbrother is yet another challenge where five of the contestants will have to stand up in front of a crowd of 120 people and explain in 120 seconds why they should not be evicted from the auditorium.

Before all that some of the contestants will be meeting Facebook. More updates later.

While in the Valley I’ll have my cubic phone with me:

All of the below numbers go to the same phone, neat huh? 🙂

San Francisco +14153761381
Dublin +35315262763
London +442088199685
Cubic to Cubic 7770016