Post-meeting wrap-up

90+ angels, VCs, and founders descended on the Harvard Club of NYC for major networking, good wine (thanks Ed Zimmerman), and terrific presentations (thanks Doug Stevenson - Co-founder/CEO of Vibrant Media and Alexis Maybank Co-founder Gilt Groupe). Our jury-selected start-up -- from 5to1, Accordant Media, BankSimple, MiMedia, MyNines, TeamHomeField.com, and Trust Metrics, did a great job telling their stories in an informal setting. Thanks to them as well.

So what did we learn?

--The New York City tech scene is vibrant (to borrow Doug Stevenson's favorite word, but without his awesome accent), with an engaged community of angel investors, terrific NYC-based VCs, great VCs covering NYC from outside this geography, and, wonderful founders who have taken the first steps toward building $100 million revenue companies - taking the leap and founding. We salute the NYC entrepreneurs who are building cool products and creating great new services.

--Vibrant, Gilt Groupe, and our angel-ready companies are creating very cool jobs in NYC. Gilt Groupe and Vibrant are employing engineers who are doing cutting edge work and accessing all New York has to offer. And as our seven angel-ready companies grow, they will also be driving job creation for engineers, talented salespeople, and the like.

--A talented UI designer for B2C sites could have walked out of that room with a dozen job offers (actually she or he might have been carried out of the room!).

--The folks at Gilt Groupe probably don't take a lunch break at noon, since everyone in the world is hitting their site as soon as the new sales launch. (Which I will be doing tomorrow).

--The same CEO can helm a company from zero to big revenues (I'm looking at you, Doug Stevenson).

--Hiring for start-ups in NYC is interesting but (a) Doug taught us that you get the benefit of being located across the street from many of your customers, and (b) Alexis taught us that if you schedule the interviews for your engineers at the same time at which you are screening your fashion models, you will get some pretty amazing engineers.

Thanks also to our executive committee: Ian Sigalow @ Greycroft, Matt Harris @ Village Ventures, Matt Keiser @ Live Intent and Perky Jerky, Sarah Reed @ Charles River Ventures, Ed Zimmerman, and Ray Thek; and to Mark Kesslen, Kathi Rawnsley, Karen Ernst and Betsy Hatfield (especially to Karen and Betsy, without whom we would have been standing by ourselves in an empty room, with empty glasses, talking about the NFL draft). (I'm also on the executive committee, but it would be unseemly to thank myself (again)).

Watch this space for an announcement concerning our next happening -- an AngelVineVC office hours in NYC in June at the offices of Greycroft Ventures!
-Anthony