MyPunchblog

I’m not a huge fan of conferences — perhaps it’s because I’ve been to so many over my 15 years in the software industry. I had a good streak going for a while: I had been to every MacWorld conference (in both Boston and SF) for five years running, and I went to every National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) tradeshow for 8 years in a row.

Last week I attended the AlwaysOn Venture Summit East conference. The conference is a mix of entrepreneurs, VC’s, and a handful of press people. There were about 350-400 people at the event.

My plan was to go on Tuesday only, and skip the event on Wednesday. When I went on Tuesday, I was blown away– here were most all of the VC’s that I wanted to meet; all accessible and available to talk to within a few hours of an afternoon. I sat in on a couple of panels, but that was no comparison to the networking I was able to do in the main hall. I left the meeting on Tuesday with a stack of business cards and a few confirmed meetings for the future. Pretty darn efficient.

On Wednesday I had a few meetings scheduled throughout the day so I wasn’t planning to go back to the Venture Summit East conference. When I woke up in the morning, I felt something pulling me back. So I drove to Boston, and on the way I cancelled my other meetings. When I arrived at the conference, I sat down for lunch. Within a few minutes, I had met another few VC’s that were interested in Punchbowl. The afternoon was equally as fruitful — had a quick conversation with Scott Kirsner from the Boston Globe and met Bijan Sabet from Spark Capital and Chris Greendale from Kodiak Venture– just a few of the people in the stack of business cards I carried away from the event.

It’s not often I’ve gone to a conference where I feel like the time spent at the event was more efficient than the time I could have spent in the office. The AlwaysOn Venture Summit East was fantastic, and I look forward to the conference next year.

Yesterday I was interviewed by Dow Jones VentureWire. The article came out this morning in the VentureWire newsletter.  By far, it’s my favorite article that’s ever been written about MyPunchbowl. And the best part? It’s all true.

Read on….

VENTUREWIRE ALERT

Wednesday, October 03, 2007

THE DAILY WRAP:

Punchbowl Software Inc., which just secured its first round of funding, puts its product through a verification process like no other start-up does. It’s called “The Jessies Test.”

See, both founders of the company married women named Jessie, and when they need feedback on their event planning Web site, their party-planning spouses prove to be an ideal sample group.

“‘The Jessies Test’ is input from two educated, Internet-savvy women and all they care about the site is that it’s easy to use,” co-founder and Chief Executive Matt Douglas said.

Douglas said the company just closed a “traditional seed round” from Intel Capital and eCoast Angels that was less than $1 million. He said the funding will be used to help the team sort out its revenue model, hire developers and experiment with marketing efforts.

The company was launched in January by Douglas and Sean Conta, both of whom have experience developing user interfaces for software.

Natick, Mass-based Punchbowl Software is the company behind MyPunchbowl.com, an event-planning Web site. MyPunchbowl offers tools for the full cycle of party planning - helping planners coordinate a date, send invitations, secure party supplies and share pictures and videos after the party.

I’m very excited to announce that we’ve closed a round of funding, led by Intel Capital. I’ll post more about how this deal came to be and the inside scoop over the next few days. Needless to say, we’re very excited about our new investor Intel. Here’s the press release that will hit the wires in just a few hours.

Punchbowl lands Venture Capital Funding, led by Intel Capital
Creators of MyPunchbowl.com secure seed round funding from Intel Capital and eCoast Angels

Natick, Mass. (PRWeb) October 2, 2007 – Punchbowl Software Inc. today announced the closing of a seed round of funding led by Intel Capital with participation from eCoast Angels. Additional investors include angel investors in Silicon Valley and Boston. The terms of the financing were not disclosed.

“Intel Capital, with its recent emphasis on early-stage consumer internet investing, is the perfect investor to help fuel our rapid growth,” said Matt Douglas, founder, Punchbowl Software. “This funding will allow us to capitalize on numerous opportunities available in the market.” 

Punchbowl Software is the company behind MyPunchbowl.com, an event-planning website which launched in January 2007. MyPunchbowl offers a modern, user-friendly interface that helps hosts with coordination and logistics during every stage of event planning. The site can be used to plan holiday parties, life milestone events, and adult and kids birthday parties.

“The event-planning market is substantial and enjoys viral growth dynamics,” said Lucy McQuilken, investment manager, Intel Capital. “Punchbowl is well positioned to take advantage of Web 2.0 technologies and become one of the leaders in this market segment.”

Since the launch of MyPunchbowl.com the site has been updated with distinct features for event-planning. The “Pick a Date” feature helps drive group consensus and automates date selection for the host. The “Party Checklist” section offers an innovative way to organize party planning and a simple way to ask friends to bring something to the party. In addition, Punchbowl recently launched an application called “Party Animal” written specifically for the Facebook platform. “Party Animal” offers a fun new way to tell your friends how they act at a party. Facebook users can also unlock bonus party animals by creating a MyPunchbowl.com account.

About Punchbowl Software:
Punchbowl Software was founded by software and user interface experts Matt Douglas and Sean Conta. They were frustrated with the available methods for planning an event or party and knew there had to be a better way. Matt was previously in senior management positions at Bose Corporation and Adobe Systems. Sean has held positions at Zildjian Cymbals and Innoveer Solutions as a user-experience specialist. The company is located in Natick, MA in the heart of the Metrowest technology center of Boston. To learn more, visit http://www.mypunchbowl.com  
  
About Intel Capital
Intel Capital, Intel’s global investment organization, makes equity investments in innovative technology start-ups and companies worldwide. Intel Capital invests in a broad range of companies offering hardware, software and services targeting enterprise, home, mobility, health, consumer Internet and semiconductor manufacturing. Since 1991, Intel Capital has invested more than US$6 billion in approximately 1,000 companies in more than 40 countries. In that timeframe, about 157 portfolio companies have gone public on various exchanges around the world and another 187 have been acquired by other companies. In 2006, Intel Capital invested about US$1.07 billion in 163 deals with approximately 60 percent of funds (excluding Clearwire) invested outside the United States. For more information on Intel Capital and its differentiated advantages, visit www.intelcapital.com