When Paul McAvinchey moved to Cleveland in April 2012 with his wife Rebecca to lead product innovation for
MedCity Media, the seasoned entrepreneur was impressed with the entrepreneurial community here.
“When I got here, I was really excited to see all the startup activity going on,” McAvinchey says. But the native of County Tipperary, Ireland, who has also lived in Chicago, Munich and Dublin, was surprised that there were no informal events bringing all the startup organizations together. “I was used to having events where all the disparate groups came together to share their thoughts and ideas.”
So McAvinchey set out to start
TechPint, a casual gathering for entrepreneurs and investors in internet technology. He made hundreds of phone calls and brought the area’s startup organizations together to plan the first TechPint event, which debuts tonight at 5:30 p.m. at
Market Garden Brewery. Can't make it? No worries. McAvinchey plans to hold TechPint every three months. Space is limited to 150 people. Tickets are $12 each for preregistration and $15 at the door. Registration details are available
here.
McAvinchey calls TechPint a “mini-tech conference in a bar with pints.” But that doesn’t mean TechPint isn’t a valuable resource. “It’s a really casual setting with drinks,” he says. “But we’re focused on a value-driven event where you are likely to go home with new ideas to work on or new things to think about.”
Many of the major startup organizations are on board, including JumpStart,
Bizdom,
LaunchHouse and MedCity Media. Speakers will be Mike Belsito, founder of
eFuneral, John Knific, founder of
DecisionDesk, Josh Walsh, founder of
Designing Interactive, and Bizdom’s Paul Allen.
Source: Paul McAvinchey
Writer: Karin Connelly