Programs Special One-Day Events
Thursday February 25th | 5:00 - 6:00pm | Venture Cafe, CIC, One Broadway, Cambridge, MA (map)
TCN UpStart Roundtables are monthly gatherings at the Venture Cafe that bring together Boston-area early-stage startups and seasoned entrepreneurs. This free series with The Capital Network, Venture Cafe, and Silicon Valley Bank is a great opportunity for you to ask burning questions about starting a company and meet other like-minded entrepreneurs in a casual cafe setting.
This week our theme is Music Innovation - and there could be no other better to discuss this than Panos Panay, the Founding Managing Director of Berklee ICE (Institute for Creative Entrepreneurship) as well as a passionate entrepreneur and active startup mentor in the creative media space. As the founder of Sonicbids, he created the leading platform for bands to book gigs and market themselves online, building a subscriber network of 550,000 bands and 35,000 promoters from over 100 countries. He led the company as CEO for 13 years, from its inception until after its successful acquisition by Backstage LLC, in a deal backed by Guggenheim Partners.
Speakers:
Panos is widely credited for spotting and capitalizing early on three distinct emerging trends in the music business over the last decade: the shift to a primarily online means of marketing; the emergence of an “artistic middle class”; and the shift from a record-label funded industry to a consumer brand-funded music business. He writes weekly about startups and entrepreneurship for blogs and publications such as Huffington Post, Forbes, WSJ Accelerators and Fast Company; and guest lectures at universities including MIT Engineering, Boston University, Brown University, and Wharton School of Business. He speaks often at industry events like SXSW, MIDEM and TEDx. As a passionate arts and business advocate Panos serves on a number of boards including being the Chair of Berklee College of Music’s Presidential Advisory Council for six years. He is a die-hard supporter of English football club Arsenal F.C.
Awards include: Fast Company’s “Fast 50” honor; Inc Magazine’s “Inc 500”; Mass Hi-Tech All Stars; Berklee College’s Distinguished Alumnus Award; and Boston Business Journal’s “40 under 40” and BostInno’s 50 on Fire. Sonicbids and Panos were also profiled in a chapter in the Financial Times-published book “Outsmart” by best-selling author Jim Champy.
Specialties: Refusing to accept that there should be a trade-off between your passion and the way you make a living.
Pete McDonald is the Relationship Manager the Emerging Technology Practice at Silicon Valley Bank. Pete has over 20 years of experience working with startups and works primarily with early stage Technology and Life Science companies.
Pete moderates The Capital Network’s Upstart program which is a series of fireside chats with entrepreneurs held at the Venture Cafe (CIC Kendall) once a month.
