South by Southwest V2V, the first offshoot of SXSW Interactive to be held in a city other than Austin, opened Sunday night with an opening dinner, a DJ-driven party and lots of networking at The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas.
As we wrote in a story that ran Sunday in the Austin American-Statesman, (On MyStatesman.com) V2V is in some ways an attempt at fusing the well-established startup tech culture of Austin with a burgeoning tech scene in Las Vegas. That scene, over the last two years especially, has begun to take shape around a $350 investment in revitalizing an area of the town in an effort called The Downtown Project.
Many conversations the first night and on Monday, the first full day of SXSW V2V, were about Las Vegas as a startup; in fact, the opening keynote by Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh, who is moving 1,500 employees as part of the Downtown Project, was called, "The City as a Startup."
In the talk, Hsieh recounted the history of Zappos, but also advised attendees to chase their passion rather than dollars. Evoking Diddy (who appeared in a slide in the presentation), Hsieh said, "Chase the vision, not the money."
V2V's primary focus is on startups and entrepreneurship, and as with Interactive, there were plenty of startup veterans, hungry new CEOs and others who want to show off their wares, be it apps, hardware or all things Cloud.
The first full panel Monday morning was about immigration reform and featured U.S. Rep. Joe Heck (R-Nevada) and several techies laying out the need for more immigration of tech workers to feed an industry hungry for talent.
Before that panel had even started, Steve Case, co-founder of AOL and Revolution Ventures was asked to stand up and be acknowledged. Case was in tune with the panel. "We're going to lose our position as the most entrepreneurial nation," Case said.
Other panels focused on topics like crowdfunding hardware, tips for growing a startup, reputation management and, not surprisingly, how Vegas tech is transforming itself. A panel featuring Vegas startup CEOs and Adam Kramer, director of entrepreneurship for the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce, touted the ways everything from an ongoing podcast to regular meetups and smart investments in crazy ideas is changing the landscape of the town and even its tourism.
"It's like having a TEDx event here every week," Kramer said. "It's changing the way people visit Vegas."
Also popular at V2V were an abundance of mentor sessions and interest in evening events that will take attendees downtown to see the startup scene's ground zero in person. (There will also be music events, parties and a film screening on Tuesday.)
Hugh Forrest, director of SXSW Interactive, said in his introduction of Hsieh's keynote that attendance for V2V hit about 1,500 people, a significant step up from the 1,000 people the fest had been projecting when V2V was announced last year. While it is small compared to the 30,621 attendance for SXSW Interactive 2013, it has already exceeded expectations, at least in attendance. How long before SXSW V2V start complaining that the fest has gotten too big?
Forrest stressed that beyond the panels, mentoring sessions and evening events, there's a lot of value in reaching out to other attendees. "Don't be shy about talking to the person next to you because the person next to you may hold the key to your future," Forrest said.
BONUS: You can read tomorrow's Digital Savant column about how SXSW V2V came together on MyStatesman.com.
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