Steven Cox - San Diego, CA. Incredible Experiences with Incredible People!

Join us for the The Nuts and Bolts of Building a Peer to Peer Internet Marketplace

Next week, I'll be speaking on a panel in San Francisco on building an Internet Marketplace.

Register here: http://marketplaces.eventbrite.com/

This is the second event in a series of marketplace panels co-sponsored by Scripted.com and Crosslink Capital. The event will be hosted at Rocket Space - one of the premiere technology incubators/work spaces in the San Francisco Bay Area.  The focus of this panel will be on the "best practices" behind building a peer-to-peer Internet marketplace. The main questions that will be addressed are: 1. Is it better to focus on building one side of a marketplace, rather than both sides at once? 2. How do you earn trust and credibility/prevent fraud in Internet marketplaces? 3. How can entrepreneurs use Internet marketplaces effectively for their own businesses?

• ·      Gary Swart, CEO of oDesk
• ·      Matt Mickiewicz, Co-founder of 99designs
• ·      Bo Fishback, Co-founder and CEO of Zaarly
• ·      Doug Feirstein, Co-founder of Liveops, Founder/Co-founder, CEO of Usell.com
• ·      Steven Cox, Co-founder and CEO of TakeLessons.com
• ·      Sunil Rajaraman, Co-founder and CEO of Scripted.com (Moderator)

Gary Swart

Gary is the CEO of oDesk is the world’s largest online workplace, enabling businesses to instantly hire, manage and pay a flexible online workforce.  He has a passion for helping small businesses succeed with more than 18 years of experience in the enterprise software market. Before oDesk, as the VP of Worldwide Sales for Intellibank, he was responsible for building the sales organization, but Gary's enthusiasm for small businesses was born during his tenure as a Business Unit Executive for IBM's Rational Software Product Group, where he led Small and Medium Business sales for the Americas. Gary came to Rational through its merger with Pure Software, where he held sales, management and leadership positions.

Gary holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration from the University of Maryland.

Matt Mickiewicz 

Matt started his first company, SitePoint, while still in high school, and has leveraged his early success into two additional companies, 99designs and Flippa. 99designs, which has hosted more than 130,000 design contests and paid designers more than $30 million since its founding in 2008, won a 2010 Webby Award and secured $35M in VC funding in 2011. Flippa has helped entrepreneurs sell more than $60 million in websites and domain names. Matt was named to each of the 2011 “30 Under 30” lists published by Forbes, INC. and Business Insider.

Steven Cox

Steven is CEO of TakeLessons, America's largest music lessons marketplace. The company offers in-person physical music lessons in 46 music categories and covers over 3,000 cities across the USA. The company has grown rapidly over the past six years by building a proprietary software services platform that curates only the best service providers, handles all of the billing, scheduling, marketing, sales, and customer support.

Before TakeLessons, Steven was Managing Director of Reddito Partners, a marketplaces and ecommerce strategy consulting firm, and was also VP of Strategic Development for CollegeClub.com. Steven first discovered internet marketplaces when he was an early employee in PurchasePro, one of the first B2B marketplaces that grew from 8 to 800 employees and went IPO in 1999. 

Steven's excitement for marketplaces stems from the belief that, in the near future, more and more people will turn to the Internet when looking for services, and buying services over the Internet will be as common as buying products. 

 

Bo Fishback

Bo Fishback is the Founder and CEO of Zaarly. Bo was previously the vice president of entrepreneurship for the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation and the president of Kauffman Labs for Enterprise Creation.

He is a founder of Orbis Biosciences, a drug delivery and particle fabrication company whose core intellectual property was developed from research conducted at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Fishback also was a co-founder of Lightspeed Genomics, a next-generation genome sequencing company that was spun out of a research program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and acquired by Macrogen. Beyond these ventures, he has worked with a variety of life sciences and high-tech startup companies as an advisor, board member, and angel investor. Currently, he is on the board of directors for Orbis Biosciences and is an advisor for Plotwatt, Inc.

Doug Feirstein

Doug is the Co-Founder and CEO of Usell.com. is the marketplace for selling used smart phones and electronics to established, trusted companies. The site helps customers find out what their smart phones and electronics are worth, find a buyer, and sell them quickly and safely. uSell is a subsidiary of Upstream Worldwide, Inc., a publicly traded company headquartered in Ft. Lauderdale, FL.

Starting from his garage, Doug launched LiveOps and pioneered the movement towards home-shoring. Fast-forward 10 years years later, LiveOps.com is now a thriving company, with over $150mm in revenue and 20,000+ agents working from home all over the country. LiveOps.com has since been backed by Menlo Ventures, Benchmark Capital, CMEA Ventures and August Capital.

Doug has had the opportunity to invest and be involved with over 20 early stage companies which include:

• Mojiva - A mobile ad platform that is quickly becoming a leader in the space.
• Nutrabella - A retail food company in the natural food space that provides pre-natal nutrition to pregnant women around the world.
• Ignighter - An innovative dating site that allows groups of people to connect and set up dates in a safe, group environment.

Sunil Rajaraman

Sunil Rajaraman is the founder and CEO of Scripted.com, a marketplace for businesses to hire freelance writers. Scripted.com has a pool of 80,000 freelance writers, and ranks as one of the top five largest writer communities on the Internet. Scripted.com currently provides hundreds of businesses with thousands of blog posts, tweets, press releases and articles each month.  

Sunil was the 2008 recipient of the Young President's Organization Scholarship at the UCLA Anderson School of Management and holds a BA in Economics from Claremont McKenna College. Prior to Scripted, Sunil held positions in management consulting and finance. Sunil has guest written blog posts and articles for Gigaom, Paste Magazine, Screencrave and other publications. 

Crosslink Capital

Crosslink Capital is a leading stage-independent venture capital and growth equity firm with over $2 billion in assets.  Crosslink, which traces its roots back to 1989,  was among the first and largest investment firms in the U.S. to integrate public and private growth/technology investing in three families of funds: venture capital funds, long/short hedge funds and a unique hybrid crossover fund. This strategy allows Crosslink to partner with its portfolio companies on a long-term basis. With more than 20 years behind it, Crosslink Capital has invested in over 100 private equity portfolio companies, at the early, mid, and late stages including Pandora (NYSE: P), Ancestry.com (NASDAQ: ACOM), Omniture (acquired by Adobe Systems), Equinix(NASDAQ:EQIX),  Carbonite (NASDAQ: CARB), Intematix, SeaMicro, Synapsense, Bleacher Report, Marin Software and DataStax.  For more information on Crosslink, visit http://www.crosslinkcapital.com

Make a Shift - Spend More Time on Things You Love

In our latest Mastermind meeting, rockstar motivator John Assaraf stated that he was dedicated to spending more of his time on things that he loves vs. things that are tolerable or downright a drag.

I made a visual representation that I think is applicable to everyone's life.

Spend more time doing things you love. This includes at work. Find jobs that fuel your natural talent and curiosity. It makes life so much better!

You're Invited: April 18th - The Digital Frontier - A Showcase of San Diego's Entrepreneurial Innovation

On Wednesday, 4/18, a few local tech entrepreneurs (including me) will be speaking at the 6Degrees Breakfast Speakers series 8:30 to 9:30 AM on digital startups and innovation here in San Diego.

The event is at The Hall of Champions in Balboa Park. Anyway, I have a couple extra tickets if you would like to attend (normally $30 each).

Topic: The Digital Frontier - A Showcase of San Diego's Entrepreneurial Innovation

Speakers Include:

Steven Cox TakeLessons.com, CEO/Founder

Pat Walsh StayClassy, Founder / CMO

Jimmy Hendricks Deal Current Network, CEO / Co-Founder

Mitch Thrower BUMP Network, Inc., CEO/Founder

Lars Helgeson GreenRope, CEO/Founder

Moderated by: George Chamberlin

Special Guest Appearance by: Nathan Fletcher

Breakfast Provided by: The Wild Thyme Company

 

San Diego Start-Up's - What's Going On in the San Diego Tech Scene

Job Openings:

Jobs: SEO Marketing Manager - TakeLessons

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San Diego StartupDigest is curated by:
Brant Cooper - Author of the Customer Development Book

  

 

What's Going on in the San Diego Startup Community

MIT Enterprise Forum - Deal Current

Wednesday, March 21 @6PM | Knobbe Martens Olson & Bear, 12790 El Camino Real, San Diego.  Deal Current CEO Jimmy Hendricks in the hot seat!

March Mingle VIII ($10 RSVP)

Wednesday, March 21 @7PM - 10PM | East Village Tavern and Bowl, 930 Market Street, San Diego | A meetup for meetups. Best party of the year!

AT&T Mobile Hackathon - AT&T San Diego Apps Challenge
Friday, March 23 @6PM | Ambi-ent, 702 Ash St, Suite 106, San Diego. Hackathon in support of the city's apps challenge.

Top Upcoming Events

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March 29 - GetupStartup.org - Lean Startups 101
March 30 - San Diego Bootstrapper's Breakfast
March 31 - UX Speakeasy Conference

The Path to Success

This picture says it all!

TakeLessons Presenting at the 2012 Montgomery Technology Conference

We're happy to have been selected as a final presenter at the 2012 Montgomery Technology Conference this week in Santa Monica, CA.

The conference is an invitation-only event featuring over 1,000 senior-level private equity and venture capital professionals. The financiers will be reviewing the best of breed new startup disruptors.

I'm not sure if there are other San Diego Startups presenting at the event, but I welcome meeting up with you there if you're going!

In my presentation, I'm going to speak about what we've been working on the past five years, our traction, and where we see the market going in the future. The truth is that buying services on the web is still really difficult to do. But we believe that over the next few years, there will be companies (like us) that make buying services on the web as easy as buying products. When that happens, there will be a whole new wave of ecommerce that allows a safer and easier experience for the customer.

Personally, I'm excited about the conference because I'll get the opportunity to practice a new way of presenting. Since January, I've set aside every Tuesday night from 6:30 - 9:30 pm (like a night class) to read and study the art of becoming an excellent presenter.

We will have 150 - 250 VC's in a room and I'll present for 20 minutes. Most companies presenting will have the standard 15-slide presentation that all VC's see. Mine will be 43. But what's really cool is that I'll probably have less words than the 15-slide normal presentations. Instead, mine will focus on combining pictures that help people grasp - in two seconds - the big picture. I consider public speaking an art, and as an artist, I want to be as engaging as possible and leave people with a feeling that they want to talk further with me about the company. 

I've been reading two books so far: Presentation Zen by Garr Reynolds, and Nancy Duarte's book entitled Resonate. Both books are highly recommended.

Here are some slides from my presentation:

San Diego Startup Digest - Feb 20th 2012

San Diego StartupDigest
Life is too short to work at a boring company. Tell us about you here.

For newcomers: The San Diego StartupDigest is an event list, created by entrepreneurs for entrepreneurs, that is laser-focused on the needs of startups in the San Diego area.

San Diego StartupDigest is curated by:
Brant Cooper - Author of the Customer Development Book


 What's Going on in the San Diego Startup Community

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RefreshSD -- Web Trends: Responsive Design
Tuesday, February 21 @7:30PM | Qualcomm Building QRC (Qualcomm Research Center) 5665 Morehouse Dr. Room 119-B San Diego

Cordell Giesen is an Industrial Designer and co-founder of local startup Zambig. He tells a great story about how he applies "Responsive Design" to his UX processes in a lean, agile start up environment to build Intercom.fm, and related iOS, Android and app experiences.

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San Diego Tech Founder's Demo Night III
Thursday, February 23 @6:30PM - 10PM | EvoNexus 101 Broadway, 2nd Floor, San Diego, CA

Local startups demo their wares.

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San Diego Startups Bowling Night!
Friday, February 24 @9PM | Kearny Mesa Bowl 7585 Clairemont Mesa Blvd, San Diego, CA 92111

Organized by TakeLessons.com, come bowling with some local startup peeps.

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BlackBerry Hackathon in San Diego
Saturday, February 25 @12PM | University City Center, 6256 Greenwich Drive, San Diego, CA 92122

Hackathons are a good thing.


 

 

 

San Diego Startup Digest - What's going on in the San Diego Tech Community

San Diego Startup Digest

 

For newcomers: The San Diego StartupDigest is an event list, created by entrepreneurs for entrepreneurs, that is laser-focused on the needs of startups in the San Diego area.

San Diego StartupDigest is curated by:
Brant Cooper - Author of the Customer Development Book

What's Going on in the San Diego Startup Community

 

 

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San Diego CTO Forum
Tuesday, February 07 @6:30PM | View in Calendar

San Diego CTO "white board" session regarding infrastructure.

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California Innovation Hackathon
Friday, February 10 @7PM | Hilton San Diego Bayfront | View in Calendar

Hackathon for Democrats. Join the California Democratic Party Computer & Internet Caucus and the SF Tech Dems for four+ hours of fun building apps for the Democratic Party, its voter and its values.

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Customer Development Day
Saturday, February 11 @9AM | Ansir Innovation Center, 4685 Convoy Street, San Diego | View in Calendar

Everyone can use some quality Customer Development practice.


Top Upcoming Startup Events

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February 23 - San Diego Tech Founder's Demo Night III

 

 

Steven Cox Interview on The Big Biz TV Show - Transcript

Click here to watch the video

Our next guest is named Steven Cox. This is interesting because when you were gone.

Yeah.

Darren Hardy, the publisher of Success Magazine, who was a fantastic co-host by the way, that was good.

All good.

And he said to me, now look, I've got this guy, this entrepreneur guy that lives in San Diego and I came home that night and flipped on the T.V. and the guy was on channel 6 and here he is with takelessons.com. Steven Cox. Steven, how are you brother?

Great, how are you guys doing?

Great to talk to you.

Yeah, awesome.

So you were a serial entrepreneur they say. Right?

That's all I know, start-ups.

Boy in this economy, I talk, I talk about the fact that in this economy, because of the jobless rate, people had to reinvent themselves either by starting new businesses or or by reeducating themselves more than any other time in history. So what a better time if you're gonna reinvent yourself, if you want a business to kind of maybe think outside the box a little bit.

Yeah absolutely. That's what we're seeing. You know a lot of people, when they first start and we interview a ton of people in our company and they go, "Oh, well we're just not sure. Is it risky to join a start-up or start our own venture?" But if you take a look around today, everything's going to hell, right?

Yeah.

It's all of the big Oh, yeah.

Companies are sitting here, and it like, "Oh geez, we can't, we have to lay off people here, and lay off people there," and-

Sure.


I think the best protection you can have is developing your own self.

Sure.

And starting your own business or getting involved in a start-up, it's just as safe as a large company.

Tell us about, well.

And they got more power.

Well, I see this all the time. You look at the stocks for National University, you look at the stocks for University of Phoenix. Those stocks are going through the roof because people are reinventing themselves.

Right.

But then, the numbers also show that there's been more entrepreneurial activity right now than there ever has been in history. And I believe that's because people have to. Tell us about what you guys do over there.

So, what we do is, the name of our company is Take Lessons.

Take Lessons.

Yeah, so we've created a marketplace. Basically, there's a three billion dollar industry out there, and in essence you have a ton of musicians out there, and I don't know if you've heard, but sometimes artists are not necessarily the best at business.

Sure. Yeah.

Yeah. So, what we've done is we've developed out a marketplace where our artists can make a living doing something that they love to do.

That's unbelievable.

Yeah, so instead of having to collect money and try to market themselves online, which a lot of folks don't understand how to do. We do all of that for them and in essence they can come to our side, if they qualify as one of our certified instructors, and now we have instructors in about 3,000 cities all across the U.S.

Wow.

They can make money doing what they love to do instead of working at Chili's or working retail or something like that.

Or both.

It's just awesome.

Yeah, or both. Yeah, that's where the whole idea came from, it's to keep my drummer, keep my drummer out of Chili's.

So, so it's keep my drummer

Out of Chili's dot com was taken, so you couldn't have that one.

It's like a political statement. Keep my drummer out of Chili's.

Keep the saxophone player out of a bar.

You know what they call a roomful of drummers?

What? Prison. Oh no!

Thank you.

So this is interesting concept because what you have done, and I'm not comparing you because what you have is so unique, but it's almost like Craigslist meets Angie's List for the local music guy, right?

Yeah, if we really look at it, we take a look at it and say Craigslist was what we call services 1.0 all the way.

Yeah.

And we have a general theory that there's coming a services 2.0 on the web. And what you have, Google has created this opportunity where you can find literally anything you want.

Right.

Millions of results all over the place. The issue with that is that there's now millions of results to search for.

Sure.

So what we believe is that there will be big, big brands that get established that basically do for services, what Amazon has done for product. And basically says, here is the safest

Sure.
Oh, sure. Because remember Amazon was books when it first started.

Exactly. Yeah, yeah.

Let me ask you this. Couldn't you, couldn't you move this into other ancillary services and I'm not talking about like handyman services like Angie's List, but I mean there's so many under services. Well, one thing you don't talk about is music teachers.

Exactly.

Until you try to find one.

Right.

Yeah. 3 billion dollar industry. 54% of all households across America do it. Yet it is very, very typical to find someone.

Yeah.

How do you know what to look for?

I'd be like, it would be It would be the same, it would be in the same category, it would be in the same category as the pet business. You know, the humanization of the pet business is turning into 14 billion-dollar industry.

Right.

And it's under services so you can't. I mean, in New York City, you can find somebody to walk your dog.

In San Diego, California, if you're going on vacation for a week?

Try it. No way.

You can't do it, so there's a tough- Steven Cox On part of our entrepreneurial series on the Big Biz show, we kind of show you other businesses out there you may not have thought of. And it's, I love entrepreneurial activity. I love it, especially when a guy comes up with something. When we come back from the break, we're going to hear about how we actually came up with the idea, which I think you'll find is an interesting story.

Steven Cox, Take Lessons, takelessons.com.

I think I want to be a music teacher now.

You have to learn how to play, Russ.

Well, you know you got to start somewhere, Mark.

Russ "T" Nailz, Sully, Big Biz show, bigbizshow.com. CBS, ABC, Armed Forces, Biz Television, our website bigbizshow.com. Follow me on Twitter or @bigbizzradio. Don't go anywhere. Alright, back to our guest.

Yes.

His name is Steven Cox. He is the founder and CEO of takelessons.com.

Great idea.

And if you're just joining us, it is a clearing house of music teachers.

A lot of times when you hook up with a music teacher, or not hook up, but, you know.

Who knows?

But if I had a nickel.

Hey,
I want to learn how to play the flute!

Alright. Come on over.

No, but you hook up with the wrong type of personality because everyone learns at a different, some guys, yadda yadda yadda.

Hey, what were the metrics involved when you put that together, when you decided who you were going to take, who you're not going to take and that type of thing.

Well, we've been in business for about five years, and so it really took us a couple of years to really decipher down what makes a great music instructor. And for most of our people, most of our customers, they're beginner.

Yeah.

What they have is, they have a general fear, it's like are people going to make fun of me? Do I suck?

Yea, yes, yes and yes. Let's get past that.

And so, the whole idea is, there are a ton of great musicians out there.

Sure.

And they all play, and they, you know, all passing about it.

It's unbelievable.

Sure.

But what we really look for is not only, can they play, but can they make that beginning student, which is most of our customers, feel awesome about music?

Sure. Right.

You know because so many people, they try and if they don't get that positive reinforcement back with social approval.

Oh yeah.

They're out, they're done.

Yeah.

Cause some old music teachers are like "NAH!". Oh, man. Sorry. Scary.

Yeah, exactly. Risked a knuckle or duster to get rid of those guys.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

So, let me ask you this. So how did you start?

This came out of necessity, out of a fellow musician that needed some help, so you did that to bring me to the next step

Sure. So I had done start-ups, and I was kind of taking a little time off. We had finished a start-up and I was down here in San Diego, playing in a band. My whole family is very musical, and I'm kind of the least musically-oriented out of them. So I was a lead singer in a rock band, and my drummer, he was an incredible, incredible musician.

He had a Master's degree in music performance.

Wow. Wow.

I'd just tried to buy a house in Encinitas which is basically impossible on a musician's budget, just found out that his wife was pregnant with her first kid.

And reality hit him, like right between the eyes.

Yeah, he was like, "Dude, I gotta quit the band." I'm like, "Wait a I was like, "You can't quit the band, if it means I'm not gonna get dates, if you quit the band."

Yeah. Yeah, right!

Because you're the only one good in the band.

Yeah. Oh!

Yeah, and so I started talking to him, and I was like, "Yeah, well, I'm not making a living doing this, I'm gonna have to take a job at Chili's."

Yeah, right.

And I said, "Uh-oh, well we can't have this." So I said, "Are you recording? Are you, you know, what's going on?" And he said, "Well, I'm trying all that stuff," and I said, "Are you teaching?" He said "Dad, I've got my poster hanging up at the C VS drug store."

Yeah!

"I can't find enough students." And me, I come from an internet background. I said "Well why don't you just use the internet?"

Oh yeah! Bing! Who? Where?

He's like, "I don't know how to do any of that stuff."

Right.

I said, "Well, okay, well I'll help you do that."

Right.

And we really started designing the whole methodology for how do you go about finding a really awesome instructor down on a hyper-local level. The localized level to the ZIP code.

Yeah, yeah.

And that's where.

Oh, right. So if you live in New York City versus one of the boroughs, you can find somebody in New York City. Or if you Opelika, Alabama, you can find somebody in Opelika, Alabama.

Right.

Or in San Diego, if you know, the.

Yeah, a lot of times.

In walking distance, sometimes.

Yeah, like in San Diego, we try to find someone within about four miles.

I've got two teenage girls that took lessons. I come from a music background. And one of our biggest things was safety for those kids.

Right.

How did you guys tackle that part?

We have a seven-step hiring process that we walk every single instructor through.

Nice.

Last month, we had about 1100 instructors apply to work with us.

Wow.

We ended up recruiting about 8o of those. So, we're very, very specific. Not only do they have to have the right.

Well Russ, looks like you better stay on the air for a while cause.

Yeah, well thanks for being our guest. We got to go now. Anyway. Try us again next year.

Yeah, well, whatever.

I 'm very, very peculiar about who we take in

Sure.

And they have to pass not only all of the criteria

Oh good.

But we also do background checks, criminal background checks and big deal when your.

Oh wow

Yeeah.

So, it's Craigslist type of a site.

It's Craigslist 2.0. It's the next version.

How did you get, so if you look at the website, ladies and gentlemen in takelessons.com, you didn't do this in your backyard. This took some money to do. Was this out of your own pocket? How did you guys get started?

When we first got started, I funded the company.

Family and friends? Credit card?

Yeah, so it's just basically off, you know, another venture we had done.

Sure.

So I funded the company. And then we had some friends and family did a couple of rounds of Angel Investors, here with local tech investors. We had raised a total of about 1.7 million that round.

Wow.

Last year, we signed a big deal with Best Buy and we are now teaching inside of Best Buy stores across the nation. You may not have even known that they have done that, but that is something they have started to do.

Wow. No.

And with that, we had the ability to expand the business.

Sure.

And so we took our first round of institutional capital last year in May. It was a company called Crosslink Capital. They led the round. Did 6 million dollars. This the same guys who did Pandora.

Sure.

And then backup investors did, you know, Facebook, Twitter.

Oh, wow. Yeah.

All the big heavy weights in the internet space settings.

So what's the next step for you? Do you go public with this thing? I mean, what's the path of liquidity for you. Do you sell it to a Craigslist type thing? I think what people think about these things, well that guys got a cool little business but the investors isn't getting involved and hanging on for the next 20 years.

Yeah, right and that's true, you know, they're always looking for, "What's the return?"

That's the exit strategy, yeah.

And for us, we have very, very patient investors.

Oh, good.

And so that will allow us to really build out where we are. We're very, very focused on music. That's where we want to be at this point.

Nice. Good stuff man.

Well good for you brother. I really appreciate it. And this is the type of things our listeners, our viewers need to hear is that, even in this economy you got a good idea. Good ideas and talent will get you a long way, right? Steven Cox, ladies and gentlemen. Take lessons, takelessons.com. Thank you, man.

I hope you took lessons on that interview, everybody.

Yeah!

Go visit the website. Alright.

Upcoming Events for San Diego Start Ups Jan 15-30, 2012

San Diego StartupDigest

Several great events the next couple of weeks. There's something for everyone, so get out and mingle! :)

For newcomers: The San Diego StartupDigest is an event list, created by entrepreneurs for entrepreneurs, that is laser-focused on the needs of startups in the San Diego area.

San Diego StartupDigest is curated by: Brant Cooper - Author of the Customer Development Book

What's Going on in the San Diego Startup Community

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appMobi - HTML5 mobile apps and game dev platform
When: Mon, Jan 16, 6:00pm
Where: Ansir Innovation Center, 4685 Convoy St, San Diego

Steve Tsuruda from appMobi will discuss cross-device HTML5 developer tools for creating iOS, Android mobile apps, plus HTML5 web apps.

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MIT Enterprise Forum featuring ai-one
When: Tue, Jan 17, 5:00pm
Where: Salk Institute, 10010 North Torrey Pines Rd, La Jolla

Great Panel will discuss how "Lean Startup" ai-one might create awareness of their evolution in artificial intelligence and get past the naysayers that say BII can’t be done and find the early adopters who will pioneer the new platform. (Panel moderated by your friendly local Startup Digest curator!)

Discount available here.

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CES 2012 Recap
When: Tue, Jan 17, 5:30pm
Where: Knobbe Martens, 12790 El Camino Real, San Diego

Didn't make CES this year? Technology journalist Harry McCracken in person who will be discussing the Consumer Electronic Show.

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SandCHI
When: Wed, Jan 18, 6:30pm
Where: Websense, 10240 Sorrento Valley Rd

Designing Mobile Augmented Reality Tools for Monitoring Urban Forests with Ruth West of Calit2 at UCSD.

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San Diego Scala Users January Meetup
When: Thu, Jan 19, 7:00pm
Where: Ansir Innovation Center, 4685 Convoy Street #210

Come hack on the Scala Koans exercises from bitbucket for most of the evening. The Scala Koans are a good way to learn about Scala in small steps by fixing test cases so that they pass.

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SDVG VC Outlook 2010
When: Tue, Jan 24, 7:00am - 9:00am
Where: Hyatt Regency La Jolla at Aventine

Panel of VC prognosticators tells you what is in store for the Venture World.

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Geek Girl: Women in San Diego Tech Startups
When: Thu, Jan 26, 6:00pm
Where: Ansir Innovation Center, 4685 Convoy Street #210

Some of the coolest Geek Girls in San Diego will discuss what it's like to work in tech!

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David Cohen Meets SD Tech Founders
When: Fri, Jan 27, 6:30pm
Where: IR/PS Robinson Auditorium, UCSD Campus

Serial entrepreneur and TechStars founder David Cohen comes to share his startup wisdom.