Paddy’s Valley

Today Pat Phelan and the Cubic Telecom guys announced that they have secured €5m in investment. They also gave hints of some of the really exciting products we can expect to see from them over the coming months.

Pat just received a batch of one of those products – MAXroam. These mobile phone SIMs have some killer features for travellers. The byline is “Travel Global, pay local and your callers pay local too”. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg and I’m sure we’ll hear all about them soon.

Cubic is providing some of these MAXroam SIMs for the Paddy’s Valley tour and I cannot wait to try them out! Thanks Pat.

Slightly tuned cross-post from Web2Ireland.org:

We are genuinely thrilled that Enterprise Ireland has agreed to run a pitch training session in advance of DemoBar on Thursday September 13th. It is aimed at those doing a DemoBar presentation that evening and also as the first training session for those attending the Paddy’s Valley trip who intend pitching in Silicon Valley.

The format has not been finalised yet, it depends to some degree on the numbers who sign up. However it will involve pitching to an expert panel and/or the other attendees in addition to guidance and training.

If you are travelling on Paddy’s Valley, then this will be the first of three sessions that EI are providing. I took part in a similar session with InterTrade Ireland last year and left a blubbering wreck but ten times better at pitching.

Please also see my Argolon blogpost on DemoBar.

Sign up now for Pitch Training by emailing your details to web2ireland DOT editor AT gmail DOT com and pleasee send a CC to paddysvalley AT gmail DOT com if you are a Paddy’s Valley traveller.

BTW, do send us a mail to the Paddy’s Valley address if you are attending our social meet-up at 5pm before DemoBar in Ely HQ.

We will confirm date, time and venue for Pitch Training asap. At the moment it looks like early afternoon of Thursday 13th in Ely HQ.

Fly in on Sunday the 2nd and get our bearings and relax.

Monday: Mobile Monday in Silicon Valley. The biggest mobile event in the Valley. It is on in the evening, so the morning is free to meet any big names/investors you have contacted to meet with.

Tuesday Morning: E.I. will organise a half-day morning seminar with local Silicon Valley people who will give us the lay of the land and how business works over there. This will include Irish-friendly VCs. Pitches will be checked-out and even done for real at at this event.

Tuesday Afternoon: Free but ideally you will have set-up some pitching opportunities either in advance or from the morning sessions. Possible sub-group visits to local companies.

Wednesday Morning: Free for you all to do your own thing, meet contacts and people you know in the Valley. Also sub-group visits to local companies.

Wednesday Afternoon: E.I. will organise a tour bus and will be bringing us to the geeky places we want to go to. A highlight will oviously be a visit to Googleplex and meeting some of the folks there. In addition we will do photo-ops at HP Garage, Infinte loop etc. If there are sites where you think we should all go as a group, let us know.

Thursday Morning: Pitching practice

Thursday Evening: Irish Network in San Fran networking event. Irish ex-pats and potential investors should be attending. This will be a night to really work your networking muscles.

Friday: Free day for anyone to meet up with contacts made from night before and any meetings you have arranged yourself in advance. Sub-group visits to local companies.

Saturday: Free to shop and do what you want before you pack and leave. We’ll look into some touristy things to do here. Golden Gate, Bay Bridge maybe. Computer history Museum?

We are aiming to have social dinners on most nights and invite guests to them. We can discuss this in more detail at the PV Meetup on September 13th.

The DemoBar guys have finalised their time and location so we can can now slot in nicely. Our meet-up is now:

Thursday September 13th at 5pm in Ely HQ. See Upcoming.org to insert in your calendar and for maps.

This is followed by DemoBar from 6.30pm. I highly recommend you apply for Demobar as it would be great practice for pitching in the Valley. Mashup Camp is looking pretty cool earlier in the week too.

We may have more activities on before 5pm, we’re just waiting for feedback from Enterprise Ireland. We’ll keep you posted.

Funky new embeddable GMaps:

View Larger Map

With help from Mike Kiely, Liam Noonan of IrishSilicon.com (appropriately) has now recorded a light hearted anthem for the Paddy’s Valley tour – “Money in the Jar” (mp3). Lyrics here.

Memorization is mandatory for all those traveling – before getting on the plane you will be required to perform a verse in the airport pub with pint in hand

The week of Sept 10th-14th is looking like the busiest for the Irish web community this year. It has rightly been christened Web2Ireland Week. From the web2ireland.org blog:

• Mashup University – Monday 10th/Tuesday 11th
• Mashup Camp – Wednesday 12th/Thursday 13th
• DemoBar and FOWA Road trip – Thursday 13th
• OpenCoffee – Friday 14th

We’d like to add to that by having a Paddy’s Valley Meetup on the Thursday. Once the time/location for Demobar/FOWA has been nailed down, we’ll just fit in around it. We should kick it off with a meal and then continue the conversations at Demobar. Let us know in the comments if this does/doesn’t suit. Some of the topics for discussion include:

• More detailed itinerary
• Status of meeting/visit arrangements
• Swapping of contacts info/requests for further visit arrangements
• Concerns/Queries
• Anything else?

We aim to get some Enterprise Ireland people involved on the night and kick off the VC Pitch Prep.

Ideally we would have had a Curry 2.1 in there too but Paul Walsh is on vacation at that time. It looks like there are still opportunities for dinners to be arranged for some of the other nights which fit into the Web2Ireland theme.

We have sent out an email this morning to those who submitted room type preferences for the Cardinal Hotel. The email includes instructions for booking at the discounted rate. Please let us know (see Contact tab at top of page) if you have not received the email but wish to be included in the group booking.

Today’s Scoble Show takes us on a short tour of Stanford’s Computer Science building, where you can get a fascinating look at antiquity such as humongous hard drives and molasses-like modems. Another attraction within walking distance of our base.

It’s interesting to read that, “this year’s BarCamp anniversary will take place full circle back in the same place it started: SocialText’s offices… and spilling out into the streets! Yep. We will be working with SocialText to get this puppy off the ground with the goal of having a multi-office party starting SocialText’s offices… and maybe looping in nearby neighbors like Facebook, iMeem, IDEO, Edgeio and so on.”

Unfortunately it’s all happening next week, and not when we’re there in December, because all the action is just a block away from our base at the Cardinal Hotel. Still, it’s useful to know about these other companies just around the corner on High Street.

If you’ve been sitting on the fence as regards a decision to join us on Paddy’s Valley then perhaps this video of John and Patrick Collison’s talk at yesterday’s Limerick OpenCoffee will convince you why you need to breathe the Silicon Valley air.

Jan Blanchard of Tourist Republic was just one of the many attendees enthralled by the questions and answers session with the Auctomatic founders. Oh his blog Jan says -

“After 2 months in Limerick, these two lads went to San Francisco where they received seed funding by the prestigious Y Combinator network and another 8 business angels. They now operate from the Silicon Valley where they bump into potential partners, investors and clients while having their morning coffee.

After talking to John and Patrick I just can’t wait for Paddy’s Valley tour to San Fran!”