Six reasons to come to Splash Oakland, 4/22-4/23

Hundreds of VCs, top Founders/CEOs, rooftop garden lunch, after-parties, a focus on diversity

Have you seen the future? Oakland will be tomorrow's tech hub and you should be a part of it. 

Vator Splash Oakland is right around the corner on April 22nd-23rd, and the caliber of speakers we have lined up, and heading over to the East Bay, is nothing less than outstanding.

It's our second year bringing Splash to Oakland (after three years in San Francisco).  The reason remains the same: Oakland is a booming tech hub, and increasingly the home of tomorrow's entrepreneurs and the flow of investment dollars.

We want to be part of that exciting growth at the early stages. And Splash is an opportunity for curious minds to come see first hand what's happening! 

As we've been suggesting, venture financing is moving north and soon east. In 2014, San Francisco saw $15.7 billion dollars in venture invested, accounting for 32% of the $48.9 billion invested, more than doubling its percentage from a decade ago, according to NVCA. This has made San Francisco super expensive and is driving entrepreneurs to look for more affordable digs in Oakland, which in turn is giving Oakland a cool factor. 

Oakland was named one of the top citiest in 2014, according to Lonely Planet. It was named the No. 3 top startup city, by Popular Mechanics and it's the city with the second highest number of women in tech.

So not only do we think you should come to Oakland because there's a lot there there, but we've also got a great lineup (investors representing more than $15 billion in assets under management attending) and an exclusive morning tour of Oakland's uptown district. 

Once again, we have another amazing show. We can think of so many reasons to join us, not the least of which is the crowing of the Vator Splash startup winner, based on the startups competing here. But we'll settle for six for now: 

Reason No. 1 - What does it take to be in the Unicorn club? See Adam Goldenberg, Founder & CEO of JustFab, a leading online fashion brand and destination.

I had the pleasure of having a couple conversations with Goldenberg, leading up to this event. I had no idea that Goldenberg dropped out of high school after he sold his first company to Intermix. Intermix, as some of you veterans know spun off MySpace, which was eventually sold to News Corp, for $580 million.

Goldenberg told me he eventually finished high school (correspondence classes) and he's not ruling out college in the future and running a winery one day. Goldenberg is nothing but enterprising, always seeming to have multiple ideas in his head. While he wouldn't consider himself fashionable, he certainly is the King of Fashion these days. JustFab has raised nearly $300 million in venture capital. The idea was formed at Goldenberg and his co-CEO/co-founder Don Ressler's, e-commerce incubator. Interesting enough, Goldenberg said that the initial incubator was bootstrapped because he and Ressler weren't sure if they wanted to build a lifestyle business or a big VC-backed home-run. Once they started generating nearly $100 million in sales, they decided it was time to get growth capital and let the venture capitalists in.

We'll be on stage to talk about why he decided to bootstrap, but also what's in store for JustFab. IPO 2015?

Reason No. 2 - Is Thumbtack the next Unicorn? See Marco Zappacosta, Founder & CEO of Thumbtack.

Thumbtack is one of the largest on-demand professional service providers. San Francisco-based Thumbtack is changing the way people and their local professional services providers connect.

Rather than a customer searching for what they need and reaching out to service providers, they tell Thumbtack what they need and Thumbtack matches that with professionals who then offer up quotes for that business. Thumbtack has over three million projects request every year in over 700 categories, like house painting, and languages. Thumbtack has raise nearly $150 million in venture financing since launching five years ago. Vator is proud to say that Zappacosta is coming back on stage as a Keynote, having been the winner of Vator's very first startup competition. Yep. He was on stage giving his pitch, just like the other eight finalists will be doing on April 23.

But with Amazon now stepping in with its new Home Services platform, what does this mean for Thumbtack? Clearly, it's recognition that Thumbtack is embracing a big business, but it also means that Thumbtack now has a pretty well-oiled, deep-pocketed, ruthless-could-care-less-if-they're-losing-money-just-to-gain-market-share competitor. 

Reason No. 3 - Mingle with dozens of Unicorn-backers and other investors

On April 23, the room will be teeming with venture capitalists and angels. In fact, investors representing some $15 billion-plus in assets under management will be on stage or just roaming around. Our agenda hopes to bring out a conversation to help our audience understand the VC landscape. 

The first panel will be focused on Unicorns & Super-Sizes A rounds. Do you really need these to run and build a successful startup? Some don't believe so. As my friend Ravi Suria says about too much money raised, "It's like putting candy all around Branson's (my 2-yr-old) room and expecting him to grow up with good habits."

Alastair Goldfisher, longtime venture capital reporter, will moderate a panel with Ben Ling, Partner at Khosla Ventures, Tod Francis (Partner at Shasta Ventures) and Emily Melton, Partner at DFJ. Then we'll hear from a panel of prolific angels, moderated by active angel himself, Semil Shah. Shah's panel will consist of Jonathon Triest of Ludlow Ventures and Tikhon Bernsta. Then we'll hear Cory Johson, anchor of Bloomberg West TV, sit down with Josh Elman, of Greylock Ventures. Elman is a rising star in the VC world, and we'll hear how the VC world is being turned on its head. 

Reason No. 4 - Breakout Sessions for intimate networking and learning

We realize that some events are so darn large it's hard to really engage with the speakers. So on April 22, we'll have a more intimate setting with our Breakout Sessions, featuring three Tracks and five segments within those tracks.

For the Entrepreneur track, I will be giving a segment on "How to find the right risks to take." Lyle Fong, Founder of Lithium Technologies and Hobo Labs, will talk about the virtues of bootstrapping. Sharon Wienbar of Scale will share tips on when and how to scale. Jim Scheinman of Maven Ventures will give tips on thinking big and building the next Unicorn. For the "Investor Track," we will have sessions featuring Gil Penchina, prolific angel, to talk about how to invest in small chunks and how his syndicate works. We'll also have investors from SoftTech VC, Kapor Capital and Illuminate Ventures. 

Reason No. 5 - Tour Oakland's amazing uptown hub 

Visit what the NY Times calls "Brooklyn by the Bay." Oakland has been ranked in the top 10 to 15 cities by multiple publications.

Vator has partnered with the City of Oakland’s Economic & Workforce Development Department and Avison Young to provide a private walking tour entitled “Uptown’s Innovation Hub” the morning of Wednesday, April 22. There are a LIMITED number of seats for this amazing opportunity. Participants will get a sneak peak inside some of the city’s largest tech firms, innovative co-working and startup spaces and exciting new tech ecosystem arrivals, such as the historic (former) Sear's building, a 400,000 square foot space which is being developed by Lane Partners. Check it out before one of the tech giant's swallow it up for their own.   The tour ends with sweeping views from the currently vacant 24th floor at the Kaiser Center, a mid-century landmark office tower at Lake Merritt, which includes the 3.5-acre Kaiser Roof Garden. 

The Roof Garden Terrace will serve as the venue for Vator’s popular post-event networking reception on April 23, which will treat attendees to made-in-Oakland artisan food, craft beer and wine from local vintners.

Reason No. 6 - When will Tech look like America? - A deep dive into tackling diversity in tech.

Diversity in tech has become a hot-button topic. As VatorNews reporter Steve Loeb pointed out, "Last year companies ranging from Twitter to Google to Amazon all released transparency reports, showing what we already know: they are majority white and majority male. Apple's diversity report, released in August, revealed the company to be 55% white, (64% when it came to leadership positions) and 70% male (72% in leadership).

Oakland can be the role model of how companies can build in diversity from the start. Kapor Capital will be holding a Breakout Session about how to shape your startup to reflect America. On April 23, we'll have a panel discussion with Freada Kapor, co-founder of the Kapor Center for Social Impact and a leading proponent of inclusivity in the workplace, and Mayor Libby Schaaf, along Kimberly Bryant (Black Girls Code), Nilka Thomas (Google) and Lisa Lee (Senior Diversity Manager, Pandora). Fast Company reporter Evie Nagy will moderate.

In 2014, SF Chronicle said Splash helped boost Oakland's tech image. We plan to do the same in 2015, by once again becoming a main attraction for hundreds of attendees.

(Image source: bloomberg)