Founder Institute Hosts Founder Showcase at Microsoft -- And Here's What It's Like to Work with BizSpark Plus

Update:

Adding this email that just came in that gives some new information about the Showcase discussed in the previous post:

The Founder Showcase is less than a week away, and tickets are almost sold out.  As a loyal customer, you get 25% off using the code 'showcase_veteran' at https://foundershowcase.com/tickets.

The 11th Founder Showcase is next Wednesday, July 25th in Mountain View, and will feature perhaps our best speaker lineup ever; with Kevin Rose (Venture Partner at Google Ventures), Aaron Levie (Co-Founder and CEO of Box), and Hiten Shah (CEO of KISSmetrics) scheduled to talk. We also have a great lineup of Investor Judges, including George Zachary (Charles River Ventures), Jed Katz (Javelin Venture Partners), James Cham (Trinity Ventures), and Rob Coneybeer (Shasta Ventures).

Applications to the Pitch Competition have ended, but there is a still a chance for startups to present on stage to hundreds of investors and press by participating in the Demo Table Competition.

For this event we also upped the ante on the Demo Table Giveaway. Instead of just one table, we will now be giving away four tables to those who help us spread the word. Simply tweet a message with the hashtag #FounderShowcase and the URL https://bit.ly/9OlVo8, or RSVP for the event on Facebook, Linkedin, and/or Plancast, and, on Friday, July 20th, we will randomly select one winner from each of these networks to receive a free Demo Table (4 tables total)!

Resume previous post:

A while ago, the folks at Embarke.com made a video about their involvement with BizSpark Plus.   We want to share that with you in the runup to the Founder Showcase that is running on July 25 at Microsoft's sunny campus in Mountain View on July 25.

The Founder Showcase promises to be hardcore:

Guests will be treated to an entertaining Pitch Competition featuring 8 promising seed-stage companies, as well as talks by Kevin Rose (Founder of Digg, Venture Partner at Google Ventures)Aaron Levie (Co-Founder & CEO of Box) , andHiten Shah (CEO of KISSmetrics) . Appetizers and drinks will also be served in a networking hall full of other hot startups demoing their wares in the Demo Table Competition.

There will be a Windows 8 workshop prior to the day. You can sign up for that here

This informative workshop will review how to design apps with Metro principles and the Windows personality, and the business opportunity Windows 8 represents for app developers.

Windows 8 experts on hand include; 

 Will Tschumy

Will is Microsoft’s User Experience Evangelist for the western U.S. Will has been leading experience design teams to successful launches for the last 10 years. Will leads the Windows 8 Evangelism business and is an expert on Metro style design across Windows 8, Phone and Xbox. You can follow him on Twitter at @wctschumy.

John P Alioto

John is an architect at Microsoft specializing in Windows 8. Formerly he was the CTO at VeriTrainer. You can follow him on Twitter at @jpalioto.

And you may be able to win your own Demo Table, if you know how to tweet and use the #foundershowcase hashtag:

We will be giving away four tables across Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Plancast to those who help us spread the word. Simply tweet a message with the hashtag #FounderShowcase and the URL https://bit.ly/9OlVo8, or RSVP for the event on FacebookLinkedIn, and/or Plancast, and, on Friday, July 20th, we will randomly select one winner from each of these networks to receive a free Demo Table (4 tables total)! 

But here is some real fun. Here is a video from Embarke.com, a graduate from the Founder Institute. They share the benefits of working within the BizSpark Plus program. It's worth at least five minutes of watching to get an idea of the scope of help you get from Microsoft and the community interaction each company experiences.  It also confirms that FS companies are pretty cool.