TechZulu is excited to invite you to the 2012 Startup and Entrepreneurial Forecast. We have a line up of amazing speakers who will share their insights and forecast for startup trends in 2012.   Topics of discussion will be Saas, Cloud, Mobile, Gaming, Social Markets, what surprises are coming for 2012, creating value with your company, hiring problem solvers, and building sensible businesses.

We have an amazing treat for all you out there.  The panel is comprised of Southern California's Top VC's, Angels, and startup Accelerator founders.

There will be plenty of FREE Pizza and Drinks :)

Our Panelist Include:

Mike Jones, Founder at Science Inc./Former CEO of Myspace

Most recently Mike Jones served as the CEO of Myspace. In this role, Mike oversaw global business strategy and operations for Myspace, Myspace Music, and Myspace Mobile, which included board and strategic roles with joint venture partners in Myspace China and Myspace Japan / Softbank. 

Mike has over 18 years of strategic, operational and senior management experience in businesses ranging from early stage start-ups to private equity backed assets and from mid-stage business to large turn-around operations. A serial Internet entrepreneur, Mike has founded, advised, invested and sold numerous businesses, including application platform Userplane, which he led from startup to its acquisition by AOL, Tsavo Media, Movoxx, PeopleMedia, Brizzly and Myspace. Mike is actively involved with early-stage start-ups as an investor, advisor and board member. As an active early stage investor, Mike has personally invested in over 30 startup businesses including Klout, Betterworks, Formspring, ShoeDazzle and LunchMoney to name a few. 

Scott Sangster, President at Tech Coast Angels (Los Angeles)/CEO at OrganicStartup

OrangicStartup’s is a company that helps Internet startups start. OrganicStartup incubates and accelerates innovative ventures by providing them with strategic early-stage investment, advisory, and operational assistance. Sangster is a serial entrepreneur and M&A executive with experience both founding and acquiring businesses. He sits on several boards and is involved in the virtual worlds, gaming, mobile, media, and healthcare markets.

Paul Bricault, Venture Partner at Greycroft Partners/Co-founder Amplify.la

Paul Bricault is an active angel investor and advisor in start-ups such as Beach Mint (LA), Burstly (LA), ContextLogic (SF), Gamesalad (Austin), Needly (LA), Mtime (China), Pose (LA) and Wide Orbit (SF).

Previously, Paul was the founder of The Mailroom Fund (MRF) - a venture fund in partnership with Accel Partners, Venrock and AT&T that focused on early stage investments in Southern California-based digital media firms. 

He founded MRF during his 16 year tenure at the William Morris Agency (WMA) where he served as Executive Vice President and member of the Board of Directors as well as the head of both the Global Marketing Practice and the Digital Media Group.  

Howard Marks, Co-Founder at Activision / StartEngine

A 20-year industry veteran, having co-founded juggernaut Activision as well as Acclaim Games. After its acquisition by Playdom, he was most recently head of the Acclaim studio and Sr. VP, Strategic Planning at Disney Interactive Media Group.  Howard is currently the CEO of Gamzee, a social games company that makes game that play everywhere written in HTML5.

Dan Dato, Mentor at upStart.LA

Dan an experienced entrepreneur and veteran senior executive of several venture-backed digital businesses. His passion has always been working with startups. Dan has developed products and built sales & marketing teams with The Motley Fool, TouchCommerce (SaaS e-commerce chat/IM) and Evryx Technologies (mobile search & marketing), while also serving as an advisor & mentor to several early-stage companies in the areas of product development, strategy & fund raising in a variety of industries such as publishing, education, internet infrastructure and mobile. Dan has helped his companies raise more than $50 million in venture and corporate financing.

Mark Suster, Partner at GRP Partners and Founder of Launchpad.LA

Mark Suster joined GRP Partners in 2007 after having worked with GRP for nearly 8 years as a two-time entrepreneur. He keeps a popular entrepreneurship/VC blog called Both Sides of the Table.

Moderator:

Amanda Coolong, COO/Executive Producer/Chief Correspondent at TechZulu

Amanda Coolong has interviewed hundreds of entrepreneurs, venture capitalists and influencers at every major industry conference, and is an active beta tester for many of the products she encounters.

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Startup Food Sponsor

continues to explore a range of technology frontiers. New models for improving the search experience are at the core of several companies currently growing inside of Idealab. Moving beyond the Internet, we have spawned companies with breakthrough technologies in robotics, renewable energy and automotive design and production among others. Idealab also continues to partner with leading venture capital firms and other strategic investors to provide the resources to maximize the potential of these companies.