It was another successful trip out west, including our first LA meetup at Bar Marmont.
Last week Dusty Davidson, Caleb Ulffers and I had the pleasure of visiting San Francisco and Los Angeles.
The purpose of the trip, sponsored by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, was to connect to past speakers, ex-patriots, as well as friends and supporters of the Silicon Prairie community.
Thanks to our sponsor
We took the energy and message from the Silicon Prairie to each of the meetings and conversations we had around all the activity that’s taking place within our region.
The trip consisted of meetings in San Francisco on Monday through Wednesday with the meetup on Tuesday evening at The Press Club in San Francisco. Then we traveled to Los Angeles from Wednesday afternoon through Friday and hosted a meetup there on Thursday evening at Bar Marmont.
We were able to connect with Big Omaha speaker Tony Conrad at the about.me offices; Lane Wood, formerly with charity: water and Warby Parker; as well as make a new connection in Shaan Puri, CEO of Monkey Inferno, who hosted us out of his offices on Tuesday. The meetup in San Francisco brought together more than 60 people, all with connections to the Midwest or friends of those with connections. It was an awesome time of networking with new and old friends.
We flew in to Los Angeles on Wednesday to host our first (of soon to be many) meetups there. Cameron Rasouli graciously hosted us at the Coloft co-working space, which you may recall when Danny Schreiber was there back in August of 2011.
We met up Thursday night at Bar Marmont and connected with roughly 15 people who came through with ties to the Midwest.
Next up is our trip in November to New York City, so be on the lookout. Another thank-you to the Kauffman Foundation for making these trips and continued conversations between our region and the coasts possible.
With that, here’s a quick photo recap of our time:
Our great friend Rahul Gupta picking us up at the airport, with coffee!
The view from the about.me offices, where we meet up with founder Tony Conrad, who spoke at Big Omaha.
The meetup at Press Club in San Francisco brought together more than 60 Silicon Prairie friends and supporters.
Lane Wood and Andrew Powers hanging out at the meetup.
Bo Fishback from Zaarly says hello at the meetup.
We stopped by the twitter building to see former Omahan John Henry Müller and the team at Pack.
Our friend Ryan Allis of connect.com graciously hosted us at his home while in San Francisco.
Coloft hosted us while in LA, with thanks to Cameron and Avesta Rasouli.
We hosted our first LA meetup at Bar Marmont with about 15 Silicon Prairie friends.
Credits: Photos by Caleb Ulffers and Jeff Slobotski.
