Tech Bashes Have Sobered Up
It wasn’t so long ago that cars lined up for blocks to get into networking parties for L.A.’s technology scene. The events were lavish, loud and often as much about exchanging home phone numbers as business cards.
As the Pinot Noir poured and with celebrities like Cindy Crawford there for backdrop, the affairs were supposed to be dream-selling bazaars that linked entrepreneurs with each other and with eager investors.
But as with so much of the infrastructure that sprang up when the capital for new ideas seemed limitless, many of the networking groups have become victims of the tech sector’s crash over the last year.
Some question whether there was ever much true business value in the events, while others say such forums remain important for bringing the tech community together with investors and others who provide needed services to entrepreneurs.
In any case, attendance has dropped sharply at most digital networking events, and even the hippest of the hip groups, such as Virtual International Community (formerly Venice Interactive Community), are laying off people and struggling for sponsors.
The parties thrown by VIC were once considered L.A. techies’ place to see and be seen. But the group has recently cut its staff from 20 to eight and is considering a merger or alliance with a national association.
“Our sponsorship dollars are dwindling and we’ve sort of been laying low right now,” said Brad Nye, who co-founded the group in 1995.
Nye denies that VIC is broke, though that’s the word among some in the tech community. VIC has four events scheduled for the next month, he said.
“We’re still producing events,” said Nye, who recently cut off his signature ponytail.
Some tech-sector veterans say they don’t miss the old days. “The whole party scene--it was in poor taste,” said Rohit Shukla, head of the Los Angeles Regional Technology Alliance, a nonprofit networking group. “It was excessive and it reeked of superficiality. Those days are not only gone, it’s a black mark.”
Duke Bristow, a senior fellow at UCLA’s Anderson School of business, likewise thinks the new climate is healthier, if more sober. He helps organize EBrew, a networking group, and also sits on the board of the Los Angeles Venture Assn.
For the last eight years LAVA, formed 17 years ago, has hosted an annual investment capital conference. Attendance at this year’s event, held in March, slumped to about 1,000 from 1,400 last year.
That’s a good thing, Bristow believes. “There were people last year with pierced body parts, tattoos,” he said. “This year, the only piercing I saw was in the cuff links.”
LAVA’s workshops and breakfast events are still well-attended, said Christyne Buteyn, the group’s executive director. “It’s getting back to normal,” she said.
“We’ve gotten rid of the ‘Sunday entrepreneur’ ” who may not have added much to networking forums, said Frank Creer, a managing director with Zone Ventures. The Los Angeles venture capital firm, which has $135 million under management, has invested in 29 companies, most of them based in the Southland.
Some industry veterans insist that networking events are even more crucial in a tough market for raising capital.
“Attendance is down and the mood is grim. But it’s an important conduit for people, especially in Los Angeles because it is so spread out,” said Peter Cowen, a consultant to tech firms in the Los Angeles area.
He said he has met people at some networking affairs, especially LAVA’s, who later became clients. He also has met lawyers and accountants who provided valuable referrals, he said.
“I think that face-to-face interaction helps to establish trust,” Cowen said.
If some of last year’s networking parties had a meat-market feel, Cowen said he didn’t notice. “I’m married,” he added.
But H.J. Paik, a senior sales representative with printing firm R.R. Donnelley Financial, which prints securities-offering documents for companies, is reconsidering her attendance at networking events.
“They are poorly attended and I am certainly not going to pay to go,” Paik said. “There’s just not the excitement about the companies anymore.”
LARTA’s Shukla said attendance overall was down at the group’s latest event, a tech forum in April designed to help fledgling companies get venture funding. Still, there were more venture capitalists at the forum than last year, he said.
LARTA was often viewed as “dowdy” compared with other networking associations at the height of the tech boom, Shukla said, but that image may be a blessing now, he said.
“It’s vital that we keep many of these groups going,” he said. “The tech scene here has become more complicated.”
The Zone Club, a nonprofit L.A. networking association formed in 1999, held an event in late March at the Natural History Museum that attracted about 600, compared with 1,000 at some of its events last year.
“Since you can no longer make a quick buck, a lot of the charlatans are gone,” said David Cremin, a partner with Zone Ventures who organizes Zone Club.
“We’re venture capitalists, and the Zone was always about business,” Cremin said. “Any group that helps build a human capital network is important.”
Zone Club receives funding from its sponsors, and financial sponsorship for the group has doubled this year compared with last year, Cremin said.
“Instead of just being a party, we’re trying to create a climate where venture capital and entrepreneurialism can grow. We plan to stay around,” he said.
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Debora Vrana can be reached at debora.vrana@latimes.com.
