The Business of API's

First Round Capital portfolio company, Mashery, will be hosting their third annual Business of APIs conference, coming up on Monday, November 3rd in San Francisco.

As its name suggests, "The Business of APIs" is not a technical conference. It is a place where the people responsible for bringing in revenue, building traffic or building content syndication channels will learn how some of the most prominent and successful media and internet companies are enjoying significant growth through building a web services distribution channel.

In this one-day conference you will learn from companies that have executed API strategies to reinvent their businesses. They will share why and how they did it, what they expected to achieve, and how they are measuring success. It will be a day of real-world advice and lessons learned from many of your peers who are already part of the Web's Industrial Revolution.

Confirmed speakers include:

• Heidi Tucker, VP of Business Development, Hoover's
• Marc Frons, CTO, New York Times
• Mike Hart, Director of Engineering, Web API, Netflix
• Daniel Jacboson, Manager of Application Development, NPR Digital Media
• Clay Webster, Associate Vice President Platform Infrastructure, CBS Interactive
• Michele Azar, Vice President of Emerging Channels, Best Buy
• Allen Hurff, Senior Vice President of Engineering, MySpace
• Aaron Patzer, Founder & CEO, Mint.com
• Quentin Hardy, Sr Editor and Silicon Valley Bureau Chief, Forbes

This is only a partial list of speakers; more will be announced in the coming days. Information about the conference can be found at: http://www.apiconference.com

Use the discount "BAPI" code and register for only $199 - a savings of 33%!

First Round Capital Office Hours (and Free Coffee)

CORRECTION - My initial post had the wrong date.  The correct date is Tuesday, October 21st.

We live in interesting times.   Despite the recent doom and gloom forecasts for startup companies, we at First Round Capital are still investing in new companies and actively seeking talented entrepreneurs to back.  My colleagues on the west coast are holding our first Office Hours next Tuesday.  As Kent wrote in his blog post:

"At Office Hours, we’d love to meet with entrepreneurs, people thinking about becoming entrepreneurs or folks who would like join a start-up. We’ll be available for a bunch of informal ~15 minute chats. There’s no agenda. Ask us what we think of the market environment or share an idea for a company – we’ll be sure to have plenty of napkins available to help draft that first product plan. We’ll listen, share our perspective and pay for the coffee (which may be of more value than our advice).

When: Tuesday, October 21st , 11am – 1pm
Where: University Café, 271 University Ave, Palo Alto, CA 94301

All are welcome -- if you think you'll drop by, please RSVP, so they can get a sense of how many people are coming.   I'll be in town that week, so I'll be there from 11 until noon...