Lunch 2.0

Quick note: If you can’t make it down to South Bay for the Lunch 2.0 @ Plaxo, then check out the Lunch 2.0-inspired, SF Lunch .NET 3.X down at Mastrelli’s Delicatessen in the Ferry building, right next to where Microsoft hosted Lunch 2.0 last month

Seattle

Joshua Maher is kicking ass and taking names with the Lunch 2.0’s in Seattle. The next one is at Cardomain

When: Wednesday, September 12th, 11:30AM-1PM
Where: CarDomain Network, Inc., 1633 Westlake Avenue North, Suite 100, Seattle
RSVP upcoming page

Yes, I know it’s filled up already! Don’t be left out again and check out the seattle.lunch20.com, especially thier upcoming events page which is showing two more. One on September 21st and another on October 12th!

Los Angeles

Did I forget to mention that Lunch 2.0 is officially starting up in L.A.? Their first event is going to be at ThisNext on September 7th, right after Burning Man.

When: Friday, September 7th, 12:05PM-
Where: ThisNext, 1409 3rd Street Promenade, Santa Monica
RSVP on Mixergy

There are already 40 people RSVP’d including some very recognizable names. Like Lunch 2.0 elsewhere—it’s a free lunch. So tell all your SoCal friends about it and help Lunch 2.0 LA grow organically…even if we can’t always eat organically.

Also today, hot on the heels of her success at Twiistup 2, Lunch 2.0 L.A. co-organizer, heathervescent, is hosting an her L.A. Geek dinner C & O Cucina in Marina del Rey.

New York City

Brett Petersel has contacted us about getting Lunch 2.0 in the other Silicon *ly: Silicon Alley in New York City. I guess running Web 2.0 Meetup NYC wasn’t enough.

If you’re interested in helping, hosting, or just attending, contact him: info [at] this site and the soon to be launched LunchNYC.com!

Bangalore, India

Speaking of new websites, what’s Oota 2.0?

Bangalore. The Silicon Valley of India.

Rana Singh and Aakash Mandhar inform us that they’ve started a Lunch 2.0 LAN (Lunch Area Network) there, but put a spin on it calling it “Oota 2.0.” I heard it means “lunch” or something in a language other than English. Check out or contact them: rana.singh [at] this site or aakash.mandhar [at] this site, or their blog.

Atlanta

Ben Ramsey, PHP community manager and Atlanta native thinks it’s B.S. that there isn’t one on the south…

answer his question on LinkedIn or contact him: ben [at] this site.

Your area?

The other day I was trying to figure out our Lunch 2.0 mission statement when I happened across one of the first e-mails Mark sent to a couple friends:

Hey Joyce and Adam [of Renkoo], we weren’t kidding about Lunch 2.0. We already bought the domain name. Want to be admins on our community blog? The idea is that we’ll announce where we’re hitting up for lunch and invite people to come along. Then afterwards we’ll post pictures, etc. It’ll be great.

That’s basically our winning formula:

1. Hit some place up for lunch
2. Invite people to come along
3. Afterwards, take pictures, blog about it, etc.

If you meet someone from an area that is starting up a Lunch 2.0 refer them to the people above. Interested in starting one in your area? Contact Mark and me.

Mark was right: “It’ll be great.”

It was… and is… and will be.

As VC of Lunch 2.0, it is my job to make sure we run at a loss until we sell out. With all the free schwag that we’re getting from our gracious hosts, we’re in danger of recouping the $5 investment that I put in for the domain name.

I can’t let that happen and I’ve forced the others to seek a second round of venture financing with a pre-capitalization of… well… to be honest… it sort of breaks down there.

Oh well, I’m trying to increase exposure of Lunch 2.0 because a lot of people hear us through word of mouth and have complained that they don’t know how to get in touch with us to host an event. So I had business cards printed out:

I had an extra deck printed and I’m trying to give away all the cards from it. The way this works is you view them on Flickr, mark the one you want with flickr’s notes feature, and contact me and tell me how I can get the card to you. Pretty easy, huh?

Quick links: one, two, three, four, five.

This is my way of saying thanks for coming out to Lunch 2.0 and thanks for hosting! Without you, we’d just be four guys trying to sneak into cafeterias in the Valley.

We might have forgot to mention this but Joseph Smarr has a great writeup of the origins of Lunch 2.0.

If, on the other hand, you think 19th century Russian writers were a bit on the laconic side, then my writeup might be more up your alley.

Enjoy!

In the comments, a diner almost excluded himself because he is “interested in Web 2.0 companies” not “working for one.” Don’t make that mistake! At Lunch 2.0, interest is exactly what we demand.

Here is a Jon Metzler who works in the wireless location business, recounts his Lunch experience:

A quick way to feel somewhat old and certainly very much an old-school wireless location startup employee is to go to a holding of Lunch 2.0. PK, our man about town at Mozilla Corp invited me to join the Web Enlightened for a free lunch at Mozilla Corp, which is walking distance from Google, a short drive from Yahoo, and also adjacent to what is now Google Earth, formerly Keyhole. Sometimes Silicon Valley reminds you of its cheek-to-jowl nature.

At the same table were folks from Zazzle, Yahoo, Cisco, Google.

So if you don’t mind feeling somewhat old, you’re welcome to join in the conversation.