... by Matt Noah We help people build and enhance their network of contacts in the "com and .com" world.
... by Matt Noah Published
Sunday, July 23, 2000
Eric Wieffering / Star Tribune
What began as a way to share a few beers and swap business cards with other technology wonks has become, for Matt Noah, a full-time job as a party host and would-be matchmaker.
Noah is the founder and president of NetSuds, a for-profit corporation that organizes gatherings for technology entrepreneurs, investors and workers. An April breakfast featuring noted venture capitalist and Minnesota native Ann Winblad drew more than 500 people, including 30 who won the right to make 60-second "elevator pitches" to Winblad and other investors.
Noah's ambitions reach beyond Minnesota. He's organizing a National Entrepreneur Conference in Silicon Valley in September, and has signed Upside, a national technology magazine, as a sponsor and Timothy Koogle, the CEO of Yahoo, as keynote speaker.
Noah expects 60 technology companies, more than half from states other than Minnesota, to pay up to $5,000 for the opportunity to make presentations before some of the region's leading venture capital firms.
Noah, 42, is a Fargo native. He received a graduate degree in electrical engineering from Stanford and spent 20 years as a research engineer in California, New Jersey, Illinois and Colorado. He moved to the Twin Cities in 1998 to take a job in the office of technology at ADC Telecommunications. He left the company in March to focus on expanding NetSuds.
Q How did you get the idea for NetSuds?
I was new to the area and I started thinking of creative ways to network with people, just so I'd get to know more people in the Twin Cities. The original name of my group was Network Suds, which was the same as the original Network Suds group in Manhattan. But other than the Manhattan founder coming out to Minnesota for my first Suds gathering in November 1998, we have had little collaboration.
Q How many people showed up for that first meeting?
Twenty, and they stayed for three hours. At the second meeting three months later we had 55 people, and at our last quarterly meeting, in May, we had 670.
Q How are the monthly breakfast meetings different from the quarterly meetings?
We started the entrepreneur breakfasts in September 1999. Investors were saying they liked the quarterly networking meetings, but they wanted to hear more about business plans. The start-up companies are there to present, to entice investors to schedule a meeting with them. We had 18 people for the first breakfast, and 140 for the last one.
Q How do you measure your organization's success?
First, how we are benefiting the customers -- our sponsors, our exhibitors, our attendees. Second, how profitable we are. I have a mortgage and four children under the age of 6, so this has to be profitable.
Q Are you profitable?
Yes, from the beginning.
Q Do companies credit you with helping them?
They do, and companies like Ziga Systems have been with me from Day 1, so we must be doing something right. But the companies that land financing don't do it because of me. They do it because of their talent. Do I accelerate the process? Yes, I think so.
Q How do you maintain quality control when you start drawing 600 or 700 people to your events?
Obviously, we can't provide the intimacy of a 20-person get-together, but we try to make it as intimate as we can and satisfy the demands of the people who want to attend. And we make sure there's enough appetizers.
Q Recently, a number of business and civic leaders have said Minnesota's technology industry is in a serious state of decline. Do you think they're right?
I think there's a long way to go to make Minnesota a hotbed of technology, but there's a long list of cities that face the same challenge.
In some ways what I'm doing is a catalyst for that marketplace. I don't get too concerned about all the handwringing that's going on. I just try to do something about it.
Q But you've lived and worked elsewhere. How do you think Minnesota rates?
I'd put Minnesota in the third or fourth tier.
Q Why do you think that's the case?
I think we're too conservative. We're conservative in our funding. We're conservative in our start-ups. There's not a whole lot of risk-taking going on, both from start-ups and investors. There's some, but not enough compared to other parts of the country. Part of the problem is there's not a great deal of top technical management talent that's doing it.
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