This Is Just the Beginning – Switch Philly
For over a year now, I have been talking with people about creating an event to show off all of the amazing products in Philadelphia. Sure, we have Ignite Philly, but it’s not really a place to show off products.
We needed a place to demo. Fast forward to last Wednesday (October 6, 2010), and this event became a reality.
Above you can watch the first ever Switch Philly. Watch as five Philly area companies get seven minutes to demo their product:
- Packlate is a marketplace for great deals on last minute vacation rentals
- Myna Music (Orpheus Media Research) uses music to find music.
- Apostrophe (P’unk Ave) is making content management cool again.
- CommonSpace (Azavea) makes it easy to plan a night on the town based on how far you, and your friends, are willing to go.
- Zecozi is a new generation of social, sustainable commerce.
Thanks to everyone that helped put this together. Thanks to Alex Hillman and Geoff DiMasi at IndyHall. Thanks to Blake Jennelle and the rest of the Philly Startup Leaders team. Thanks to all of the amazing companies that demoed their products, and thanks to the amazing sponsors that helped make this happen. Thanks to Neil Kleinman and University of the Arts for being very generous with their space. Thanks to the entire community for filling up those seats. Oh ya, and thanks to the guys from Baltimore who made their way out here on a Wedensday night!
Most importantly, thanks to Brian Kirk, Chris Wink and, especially, Sean Blanda from Technically Philly. If you guys had not taken ownership of this event, it would have never happened.
We had over 150 people during a Phillies playoff game. We were really happy with this turnout, and it has encouraged us to make Switch a regular event. We want Switch to be “our community’s pep rally.” It’s a place for every member of our little community in Philadelphia to show off.
P.S., I learned a bit of a lesson myself. Don’t try to set up live-streaming for the first time on the day of the event. If you noticed that I seem a bit unprepared or unenthusiastic at the beginning and end, it is because I was setting up the live-streaming up until about 10 minutes before we were supposed to start. I’ll be much more excited, and prepared, next time.
