Our 2015 cohort of Nantucket Conference 'Young Entrepreneurs'

We're grateful to the group of underwriters who are making it possible for this year's cohort of young founders to attend the Nantucket Conference "on scholarship." The eight founders are listed below, with the underwriters in brackets.

• Alex LoVerde / Wymsee [CommonAngels]
• Chris Yim / LibertyX [10X Partners]
• Rebecca Liebman / LearnLux [10X Partners]
• Dave Bisceglia / The Tap Lab [Boston University BuzzLab]
• Toni Oloko / PracticeGigs [Constant Contact SMB InnoLoft]
• Janet Aronica / Cube Riot [Dharmesh Shah]
• Brin Chartier / Tablelist [Nantucket Conference Advisory Board]
• Lauren Rhodes / MediaBite [University of New Hampshire]

This year's Nantucket Conference takes place June 4-6, and features founders, investors, and senior executives from Oracle, Acquia, Blade, Cape Air, Jibo, CVS Health, Pinterest, Seatgeek, Twitter, General Catalyst, Teespring, Fairhaven Capital, and more.

Future Forward on November 20th: We hope you'll join us

(From left: Colin Angle of iRobot, Michael Greeley of Foundation Medical, Dan Bricklin of Alpha Software, Rodney Brooks of Rethink Robotics, and Mick Mountz of Kiva/Amazon. At Future Forward 2013.)

The annual Future Forward gathering takes place Thursday, November 20th at the Harvard Innovation Lab. It has two goals:

1.  Discuss as a group some of the trends, technologies, usage patterns, and market shifts that will matter in a big way in the year ahead.
2.  Connect you with some of the most interesting entrepreneurs, investors, technologists, and big company leaders in town.

That's it. There are 10-minute talks, followed by Q&A. There are lunch table discussions at the end. It's a half-day event (8 AM - 1 PM), and everyone there attends free, courtesy of our sponsors. But it's invite-only, so if you'd like to be there you need to tell us a bit about yourself (we tend to filter out multiple attendees from one company, since space is limited. Here's the list of companies represented last year.)

Our topics and speakers in 2014 will include:

GIANT ROBOTS: Gui Cavalcanti, Founder, Imagination Fabrication

ENERGY TECH: Rob Day, Partner, Black Coral Capital

CONSUMER HARDWARE: Ben Einstein, Managing Director, Bolt

PLATFORMS & NETWORKS: Tom Eisenmann, Co-Chair of the HBS Rock Center for Entrepreneurship

WHAT I'M SEEING AT BLADE: Paul English, CEO and Cofounder, Blade

THE FUTURE OF VENTURE CAPITAL: Michael Greeley, General Partner, Foundation Medical Partners

TAKING TO THE SKIES: Helen Greiner, CEO and Founder, CyPhy Works

MONITORING THE HOME: Michael Phillips, CEO, Sense

THE MAKER MOVEMENT: Jules Pieri, Co-founder and CEO, The Grommet

We'll also be joined by several Harvard students demoing their startup ventures.

And if you're interested in demoing a not-yet-launched product or leading a lunch table discussion on a topic that *you* think will be a big deal in 2015 (these aren't company pitches, but rather they focus on important shifts and emerging technologies), drop us a note.

For photos of last year's event, see Dan Bricklin's Flickr set.

Nantucket Conference 2014: Audio from selected sessions

Sharing some audio from last week's Nantucket Conference, including sessions with the CEOs of Etsy, Warby Parker, Shutterstock, Constant Contact, Indiegogo, and Birchbox. Only a few "off-the-record" moments were clipped out, but otherwise these are the sessions in their entirety. You can click play below, or click the "down arrow" once you've selected a track to download it for later listening.

Also... here's the video that Slava Rubin showed during his session.

And here's a montage of photos from the 2014 gathering. Thanks to everyone who participated and helped out!

Photo montage from the 2014 Convergence Forum

Featuring speakers, participants, and lots of lobsters. More detail about the Convergence Forum on Healthcare Innovation here.

Audio from the 2014 Convergence Forum on Healthcare Innovation

Sharing some audio here from the 2014 edition of the Convergence Forum, held May 15 and 16th in Chatham, Massachusetts. We had 13 sessions this year, including our smaller lunchtime conversations; this is the audio from five of the sessions in their entirety. To be added to the invite list for future editions, fill out this quick form.

Click any of the track titles above to begin playing them. (Pictured above are Cubist CEO Michael Bonney and Vicki Sato, Professor of Management Practice at Harvard Business School.)

The "Young Entrepreneurs" cohort for Nantucket Conference 2014

Each year, a group of organizations and individuals underwrite free passes to the Nantucket Conference for a select group of founders under the age of 30. This year, the 15th year of the conference, our underwriters were 10X Venture Partners, Dyn, Dharmesh Shah of HubSpot, Alex Goldberg of Canary Ventures, Scott Weller of SessionM, Verizon, and the UNH Center for Entrepreneurship. We're grateful to them, and to everyone who applied for a pass. (It's not a scientific process — underwriters get to choose from the list of applicants.)

Here's the 2014 cohort of young entrepreneurs:

• David Brown, ReachPeeps
• Chris Cicchitelli, CastleOS Software
• Brent Grinna, EverTrue (also our newest Nantucket Conference advisory board member)
• Kris Hopkins, SkiSmart
• John Kelleher, Bitcoin Bills
• Jonathan Kim, AppCues
• Akansh Murthy, HermesIQ
• Moritz Plassnig, Codeship
• Nick Rellas, Drizly
• Bobby Touran, ApplyKit
• Laura Wallendal, EdTrips

We hope to see you next month on the island, when our featured speakers will include Neil Blumenthal of Warby Parker, Slava Rubin of Indiegogo, Gail Goodman of Constant Contact, and Prat Vemana of Staples, among others. And if you haven't received an invite, you can request one here.

(Pictured above are past Young Entrepreneurs Program participants Peter Boyce, now an associate at General Catalyst Partners, and Ryan Dawidjan, now at WildCard.)

Apply now: Sponsored passes to Nantucket 2014 for founders 30 & under

The Young Entrepreneurs Program continues at Nantucket 2014, June 5-7. We offer a small number of passes to founders age 30 and younger, courtesy of underwriters.

Entrepreneurs can learn more or apply for one of these passes here. And we're always looking for more generous companies & individuals to underwrite passes. (You'll receive receive copious thanks and adulation at the event.) Learn about that opportunity here.

Speakers at this year's conference include CEOs and founders of Warby Parker, Etsy, Constant Contact, Birchbox, DataXu, Indiegogo, and Dragon Innovation. We hope to see you there.

Future Forward 2013: New Format / New Location / Your Ideas?

At the very first Future Forward conferences, in 2001 and 2002, you could have:

• Learned about why speech interfaces on mobile devices were going to matter
• Seen a demo of how wireless networks everywhere would facilitate the emergence of the "Internet of things"
• Ridden the Segway before anyone else (OK, so it didn't exactly revolutionize personal transportation...)
• Met the co-founder of E Ink, years before their displays were integrated into the Amazon Kindle
• Heard about consumer applications of robotics from the co-founder of iRobot... before they launched the Roomba.

We're continuing that tradition of glimpsing the future with a group of New England's most forward-thinking techies, entrepreneurs, and investors.

This year, it happens Tuesday, November 19th in downtown Boston. We're doing it as a half-day event, starting in early afternoon and closing with cocktails. And the format is new: you'll get a series of 5- and 10-minute briefings and demos, each followed by time for debate and discussion. We'll focus on technologies with the potential to create or transform industry sectors, and new investing dynamics or company-building strategies.

So: if you have an idea for a short presentation on a technology, business, or design trend that will be big in 2014, or want to give a dazzling demo of something new or not-yet-released, drop us a note. We're especially looking for presentations that can be done in five slides or fewer, or with just a whiteboard.

And if you'd like to be in the audience — space is extremely limited, and attendance is complimentary thanks to our sponsors — request an invitation here. Our focus is founders, investors, and senior execs at fast-growing companies.

Thanks to our 2013 sponsors: McGladrey and Goodwin Procter.

Introducing the 2013 class of Nantucket Conference Young Entrepreneurs

Thanks to a group of generous underwriters, each year we set aside seats at the Nantucket Conference on Entrepreneurship & Innovation for several first-time entrepreneurs under the age of 30. They get a chance to explain to the rest of the group what they're working on, and solicit advice and guidance over the course of the two-and-a-half day gathering. Their registration fees are covered by underwriters. (We always like to give credit to Brad Feld of Foundry Group for kick-starting the program, now in its third year.)

We had a record number of applicants this year, from which the underwriters and conference organizers chose this set of 10 high-potential young entrepreneurs.

• Christopher Cicchitelli, CastleOS (underwritten by Dyn)
• Michelle Darby, Roomzilla (Boston Seed Capital)
• Ryan Dawidjan, Blank Label (Objective Logistics)
• Charles Denault, Simple Charters (University of New Hampshire)
• Jay Kaplan, Synack (10X Venture Partners)
• Nishon Radhakrishnan, FuneralProposal.com (10X Venture Partners)
• Andrew Richards, TechLok (Dyn)
• Eliot Sun, Kloudless (Dyn)
• Danielle Weinblatt, Take the Interview (Canary Ventures)
• Julia Winn, BetterFit (Data Point Capital)

We're glad to have them as part of the Nantucket Conference community.

(If you are interested in being an underwriter for 2013 or a future year, please get in touch with sgilbert - at - nantucketconference.com.)

Applications Now Open for the 'Under 30' Program for the 2013 Nantucket Conference

Each year, we make a handful of passes available to young entrepreneurs who would benefit from participating in the Nantucket Conference (June 6-8, 2013). This year, these passes are being underwritten by Canary Ventures, Dyn, and 10x Venture Partners. Our thanks also go to Scott Savitz, who helped immensely with this year's program, and Brad Feld, who suggested the Under 30 idea in the first place.

If you are an entrepreneur who will not have turned 30 by the time of the conference, send us an e-mail with your name, a sentence or two describing your current venture, info on where you are based, and a bit about how you think you might benefit from being part of the conference. At the event, you'll get a chance to introduce yourself and your start-up to the audience, and to get feedback and input from other participants throughout the 2.5 days. This includes sitting down for special lunches with some of our speakers.

You must apply by Friday, April 19th by midnight. You'll hear back from us in April or May if we can hook you up. As a note, these free passes cover conference participation, freebies, and meals, but not travel to Nantucket or lodging on the island.

If you are someone who would like to underwrite a pass so that an Under 30 entrepreneur may attend, please get in touch. Underwriters may choose the entrepreneur they'd like to sponsor from the list of applicants, or they can ask the conference organizers to choose.

Your session at Nantucket Conference 2013 is about...?

At this year's Nantucket Conference, we'll be doing some unconference-style sessions on June 7th and 8th. While most of the session ideas will be proposed on-site, by people attending the event, we want to  open up the process a bit in advance (like now), to make it possible for folks with great ideas to take part in the event. Our hope is that two or three great session ideas will surface sometime between now and the end of April, and that the people who submit them will get free passes to Nantucket 2013. (You'll have to cover travel and lodging, but all conference activities, meals, and giveaways will be free.)

We're looking for sessions that will be fun... counter-intuitive... useful... interactive... engaging. Sessions will be an hour, tops, but could be shorter. Feel free to propose anything: teaching your group to play "Smoke on the Water" on ukeleles, talking about customer acquisition while playing poker, or raising seed capital while walking around the harbor.

We're open to any topic ideas from any kind of person in any corner of the world. Ideally stuff that adds to the sessions already on the agenda, but doesn't cover too much of the same ground. A hint about what we're not looking for: PowerPoint presos you've given before, canned speeches, pitches for a particular product/company. And we tend to be a bit biased towards do-ers as speakers (founders, designers, CTOs, HR execs... as opposed to consultants and "gurus.")

Share your idea in the comments here, or e-mail scott - at - nantucketconference.com... Let us know who you are; what your session would be called; and a bit about what you plan to do.


We'll post green-lit sessions here, once they're green-lit...

New Dinner Series for Entrepreneurs: The Secrets of Scaling

We're organizing a new series of three dinners that will be held in Boston this spring.

The theme is "The Secrets of Scaling." And we have three goals:

1. To bring together founders of promising early-stage ventures for drinks, dinner, and networking. Each dinner will be limited to 20 participants.

2. To bring in a founder/CEO, who'll do a short whiteboard talk about some of the scaling-related issues they've dealt with at their company. No slides, and plenty of time for conversation.

3. To help create more successful, transformative, BIG companies in Boston.

The dinners will take place in downtown Boston on March 12, April 11, and May 2nd. Our speakers will be Scott Savitz, founder and former CEO of ShoeBuy.com, currently managing partner at Data Point Capital;  HubSpot CEO and co-founder Brian Halligan; and LogMeIn founder and CEO Michael Simon. Among them, they've hired hundreds of employees, raised tens of millions in venture capital and generated hundreds of millions in revenue, sold companies, and taken companies public.

If you're interested in participating, please send your name; a sentence or two describing your current venture; and a link to your website to sgilbert -at- silverweave.com. Participation is limited to founders of early-stage companies. (And apologies in advance...space is limited to 60 people in total, and we expect strong interest in this series.)

The underwriters of this dinner series are Bingham McCutchen LLP and KPMG.

A Nantucket Entrepreneurial Success Story

Philip Beauregard, CEO of Objective Logistics, came to the Nantucket Conference for the first time in 2011. His company was founded in New Bedford, but now also has a Boston office. Objective Logistics sells a SaaS product that helps restaurants and retail businesses get better performance from their workforce; last November, the company raised $1.5 million from Atlas Venture, Google Ventures, NextView Ventures, and Canary Ventures.

We asked Phil how attending Nantucket helped build his company's momentum. Here's what he said...

- Objective Logistics can be viewed as a bit of a Nantucket "Cinderella" story I suppose. We were heads down in the Southcoast of Massachusetts, not really paying attention to any startup 'ecosystem' for a good two years while we built our product. We saw everything else as a distraction. 

- After being courted by VCs and 'shareholders' alike for some time, we still deferred going to any events, dinners, etc. 

- That was until we saw the speaker and participant lineup for the Nantucket Conference. We were blown away. We literally couldn't justify not going. 

- So we went. 

- I've never been to an event where I met so many people with which I have carried on a relationship, before or since. The signal-to-noise ratio was and still is the best I've ever seen, by leaps and bounds really. 

- It was all quality investors, thought leaders, and brethren entrepreneurs. If events could have a 'Klout score,' Nantucket would be 100. 

- The event was the best I've ever been to. 

- We went, introduced ourselves in a bit of a debutante way (our first exposure to what are now lasting relationships), and ended up moving to Boston in November after we closed our seed round with Google and Atlas. I met Seth Priebatsch from SCVNGR at the event, he introduced me to Rich Miner of Google Ventures, and the rest was history. 

- I got to know Fred Destin from Atlas Ventures at the event as well, which no doubt moved along our admiration of the guys over there (at Atlas). 

- Two of our strategic investors, Jeremy Hitchcock and Alex Goldberg of Canary Ventures, were both guys I met at the same dinner on Saturday night. 

- If you get invited to Nantucket, and you don't go, for shame.

Win a seat aboard the 2012 ACK Express, courtesy of Sentient Jet

Want a lift to this June's Nantucket Conference in a private jet? We want to put you on board the ACK Express, from Hanscom Field in Bedford to Nantucket, brought to you by Sentient Jet. You'll arrive in time for the opening sessions on Thursday afternoon, June 7th, and come back on Saturday, June 9th, after the closing lunch. (Of course, that's the aim; we can't be responsible for unforeseen delays, or detours to re-stock the plane with Grey Poupon.)

How do you get a seat? Just register to attend the conference by midnight on Monday, May 7th. Then, we'll select one lucky conference participant for free transportation. (If the first person chosen doesn't want the transportation, or doesn't need a roundtrip, we'll choose another winner.) Sentient Jet, one of our 2012 Nantucket Conference sponsors, is filling the other seats on the plane with more lucky Nantucket Conference participants and speakers.

If you haven't yet received your invite to Nantucket, you can request one here. (The conference is geared to founders, investors, and senior tech industry executives, and space is limited due to the small venues on Nantucket.)

Eligibility: To be eligible to win, you must be a fully-paid Nantucket Conference registrant by midnight on Monday, May 7th. Drawing will take place by May 8th, and the winner notified by May 9th. Not open to conference advisors or employees of Future Forward events. Winner must be able to use both legs of the trip: BED to ACK on June 7th, and ACK to BED on June 9th.

For this year's Convergence Forum: One free pass for a life sciences leader under 30

Every year, we make a few passes to the Convergence Forum available to promising young entrepreneurs, typically chosen by one of the conference's advisors. This year, however, we're opening up the process to anyone who'd like to apply for a complimentary pass to the event — as long are you are starting or running a life sciences venture, or conducting research that could lead to a startup. One other condition: you must be under the age of 30 as of May 17, 2012, when the conference begins.

The Convergence Forum brings together a small group of life sciences entrepreneurs, investors, and researchers each May to discuss ways that various industries and fields are converging. The event is entirely PowerPoint-free, and designed to help foster thoughtful conversations and forge valuable new connections. This year's conversation leaders will include Mark Levin of Third Rock Ventures, Steve Holtzman of Biogen Idec, Reid Leonard of Merck's new Research Venture Fund, and David Meeker of Genzyme. You can listen to some of the sessions from last year's gathering here, or view the slide show below to get a sense of the flavor of the Convergence Forum.

(If you are over 30, you can always request an invite to the event here... but this comp'ed pass is exclusively for someone in the under 30 set.)

To apply for the pass, just send us an e-mail with your name, a sentence or two describing your current venture, and a bit about how you think you might benefit from being part of the 2012 conference. Your e-mail must be received by noon on Wednesday, April 18th. At the event, you'll get a chance to introduce yourself and your startup to the audience, and to get feedback and input from other participants throughout the 2.5 days.

You'll hear back from us by April 27th if you've won the pass. As a note, these free passes cover conference participation, freebies, and meals, but not travel to Chatham or lodging.

Good luck!

Make a video of your own at Animoto.

And then there was one (sponsorship spot)

Great support from a stellar group of sponsors for the 13th edition of the Nantucket Conference this year. We have just one spot left but it's a really good one - includes the opportunity to present a client case study to our Nantucketeers.

Details on the Under 30 entrepreneurs program for Nantucket 2012

Each year, we make a handful of passes available to young entrepreneurs who want to participate in the Nantucket Conference (June 7-9, 2012). This year, these passes are being underwritten by the generous folks at Microsoft, Alex Goldberg of Canary Ventures, the Entrepreneurs Foundation of New Hampshire, Atlas Venture, Founder Collective, Longworth Venture Partners, and Matrix Partners. Our gratitude also goes to Scott Savitz, who helped immensely with this year's program, and Brad Feld, who suggested the Under 30 idea in the first place.

If you are an entrepreneur who hasn't yet turned 30, send us an e-mail with your name, a sentence or two describing your current venture, and a bit about how you think you might benefit from being part of the 2012 conference. At the event, you'll get a chance to introduce yourself and your start-up to the audience, and to get feedback and input from other participants throughout the 2.5 days.

You must apply by Thursday, April 19th by midnight. You'll hear back from us in April or May if we can hook you up. As a note, these free passes cover conference participation, freebies, and meals, but not travel to Nantucket or lodging on the island.

If you are someone who would like to underwrite a pass so that an Under 30 entrepreneur may attend, please get in touch. Underwriters may choose the entrepreneur they'd like to sponsor from the list of applicants, or they can ask the conference organizers to choose.

Here's the list of the eight entrepreneurs who participated in the Under 30 program last year, and all of the underwriters.

First wave of speakers announced for Convergence Forum Chatham, 2012

We're excited to reveal some of the speakers who'll be joining us this May for the Convergence Forum in Chatham, Mass. They are:

· Julian Adams, PhD, President of Research & Development, Infinity Pharmaceuticals
· John Brooks III, CEO, Joslin Diabetes Center
· Michelle Dipp, MD, PhD, CEO, OvaScience; Partner, Longwood Fund
· Leonard Guarente, PhD, Novartis Professor of Biology, MIT
· Jose-Carlos Gutierrez-Ramos, PhD, SVP BioTherapeutics Research & Development, Pfizer
· Steven Holtzman, EVP of Corporate Development, Biogen Idec
· Sridhar Iyengar, PhD, Chief Technology Officer, AgaMatrix
· Reid Leonard, PhD, Managing Director, Merck Research Venture Fund
· Mark Levin, Partner, Third Rock Ventures
· Anmol Madan, PhD, Founder, Ginger.io
· David Meeker, CEO, Genzyme
· David Schafran, CEO, EyeNetra
· Philip Vickers, PhD, SVP of Research & Development, Shire Human Genetic Therapies

We hope you'll be there, too, for this ninth annual gathering of life sciences leaders.

Gathering innovators and investors in London, on October 11th

We're convening a small group of entrepreneurs and investors for an afternoon event followed by cocktails on October 11th. We're calling it the Innovators Salon London, and the primary goal is to make new connections among the city's most promising entrepreneurs and most active investors. We'll also be discussing topics such as:

- The factors that move deals from "exploratory mode" to "done."
- The new dynamics of online customer acquisition.

If you'd like to suggest speakers, please e-mail scott at futureforward dot com; participant suggestions and sponsor inquiries should go to sgilbert - at - silverweave dot com.

The Innovators Salon takes place in advance of the British Venture Capital Association's annual summit, and will be held at Home House, a private club built in 1773.

We're grateful to BDC and Invest Northern Ireland for their support of Innovators Salon London.

Some text clouds for Nantucket 2011, from Infomous

One of the companies participating in the 2011 Nantucket Conference, Cambridge-based Infomous, has created some nifty text clouds that allow you to click on different words (and hover with your mouse) to explore information related to the conference and its speakers. Well worth checking out...

- An Infomous cloud collecting tweets related to the conference (using the hash tag #ack2011). Also embedded below.

- An Infomous cloud for Gary Hirshberg of Stonyfield Farm.

- An Infomous cloud for Geoffrey Moore.

- And Infomous cloud for Akamai.

- The Infomous cloud for Nantucket island itself.