Digital O.C. Event Canceled
Like a debutante at her ball, the Digital Orange County networking group was celebrating its first year in existence with an inaugural conference and was expecting as many as 200 entrepreneurs to attend the affair this week.
But with a weak economy and less venture capital available, there was scant interest--only 50 people committed--and the two-day Entrepreneur Summit at Chapman University was canceled.
“People are cautious . . . in this climate, partly because there’s a perception money’s very difficult to raise,” said Billy Fried, executive director of Digital Orange County.
The group’s disappointment is being played out across the region as the tech companies are axing thousands of workers, reporting huge losses or lower profits and seeing little comfort in the near future.
Attendance has dropped sharply at many digital networking events, and even the hippest groups, like Virtual International Community, formerly Venice Interactive Community, are laying people off and struggling for sponsors. In March, about 1,000 people went to the Los Angeles Venture Assn.’s annual investment capital conference, nearly 29% fewer than last year.
“I think there’s a much smaller pool of entrepreneurs than there was before the dot-com crashes last year,” Fried said. And those who are looking for investor money fear their proposals won’t get financial backing until tech companies get out of the doldrums, he said.
Venture capital investments in Southland companies, for instance, dropped 28% to $870 million during the last three months of 2000 from the previous quarter, according to Venture Economics, a data service.
Still, some digital networking events are drawing large groups.
Tech Coast Alliance attracted 1,000 business leaders Wednesday to the Queen Mary in Long Beach for the launch of its networking efforts worldwide and the introduction of its new magazine. “We’re thrilled we’ve weathered the storm,” Tech Coast spokesman Camron Bussard said.
But he acknowledged that a lack of corporate sponsors and flagging interest have limited the number of high-profile events the Irvine group has held over the last year.
Fried figured his group’s Entrepreneur Summit would be well-attended Tuesday and Wednesday mainly because of its speaker line-up, including Fred Hoar, co-founder of the Silicon Valley Band of Angels investor group. He said a host of venture capitalists, business planners, bankers, lawyers, accountants, recruiters and marketers were waiting in the wings to help new and growing companies.
Fried said he and the summit’s co-sponsors did everything they could to drum up interest by sending out more than 10,000 e-mails and running ads in local newspapers. When that didn’t work, they slashed the early-registration fee by $200 to $299.
Finally, they scotched the event last Friday.
“I was really excited about this. I really thought I had a Who’s Who [for speakers],” Fried said. “You don’t go into these things thinking you’re going to fail.”
The group, though, is undaunted. It is considering hosting a networking event in the fall probably limited to one day, and setting luncheons and half-day events.
