Many people who work at larger companies think about starting companies of their own, especially those who work at larger technology companies like Microsoft, Amazon.com, Real Networks, and more.  I was one of those individuals, having worked at Amazon.com for more than six years, and then at a smaller internet company, JibJab.  I had many personal opinions about how people should run their organizations, and I had a lot of exposure to small companies and their problems, but I admit that there were many unanswered questions, and many things that I thought I knew a lot more about than I actually did.

Before starting TeachStreet, I threw around terms and concepts such as pre- and post-money valuations, best practices in naming of companies and products, how to conduct product development sessions, and more.  But, most of my ideas weren’t fully thought through, nor had I carried them out from start-to-finish on my own.  I learn now that I wasn’t alone — most startup founders just leap in at some point, and we shared many of the same questions.

It’s because of this that Marcelo Calbucci (host of the popular Seattle20.com blog) has planned the first ever conference focused on pre-entrepreneurs, those who have yet to join or found a startup.  And, what I like about it is that all of the speakers are current and past founders of companies who once harbored these same questions and concerns.  You’ll hear from successful, and not-yet-extremely-successful founders, on topics ranging from How to Pick an Idea, How to Identify Co-Founders, Raising Money, What to Do When You Fail, What It’s Like to be Acquired, and more.

I’m personally excited, and humbled, to be talking about ‘Building the Product‘ — it’s a topic that I have a lot of experience with, but feel like I’m still learning a massive amount about every month (and day) — I look forward to hearing what the audience thinks about our process.

So, if you’ve ever thought about starting your own company, I highly encourage that you attend StartupDay 2009 — it’s an affordable and highly-concentrated introduction to startup life, from those who are living it!

Hacking Education - Union Square Ventures

2009 is racing by — I can’t believe it’s been ~5 months since I was fortunate to attend the Hacking Education gathering in New York City, assembled and hosted by the amazing team at Union Square Ventures.  I really don’t have much to add to the summary that the USV team has posted, but if you are interested in helping create the future of education, I couldn’t more strongly recommend that you take 20-30 minutes to read it complely from the first words to the end of the comment thread (it may be the best comment thread I’ve eve read!).  While present in the room, I was clearly aware that I’m incredibly ‘new’ to the world of education transformation, but that doesn’t diminish my excitement about the contributions that TeachStreet will make in opening up the world of lifelong learning to the Web and beyond — taking the time to re-read the summary only gets me more excited about the potential impact of our work, and the fellowship of innovators that we’re proud to be among.

What’s all the fuss about Twitter? Since our call out for Twitter teachers on TeachStreet, we’ve been getting some great feedback and interest in learning more. That’s what we’re all about here at TeachStreet — connecting folks who want to learn something new with local experts.

We’ve partnered with some great local partners, Allen Klosowski (Organizer of the Denver Tweetup) and KUSA Channel 9 News, to help put together a FREE “Introduction to Twitter” class for the community to learn more about Twitter and get started on this new phenomenon.

If you would like to attend, please see the information below and be sure to RSVP for the event since space is limited.

INTRODUCTION TO TWITTER

Presenting:
Joseph Sunga, TeachStreet.com
Allen Klosowski, Denver Tweetup Organizer and Professional Photographer
4:30-6:00pm

When:
Friday, May 8, 2009
4:30-6:00pm

Where:
KUSA Headquarters – Channel 9 News
500 Speer Blvd.
Denver, CO 80203

Description:

• Learn more about Twitter and what the fuss is all about
• Learn from local Twitter experts who will provide real-world  examples of using Twitter
• Discuss any questions you may have about Twitter

Special Thanks to:

Allen Klosowski, Denver Tweetup Organizeer and Professional Photographer
With over 24,000+ followers, Allen is definitely a local Twitter expert in the Denver area. He also organizes the monthly Denver Tweetups where hundreds of “Tweeps” come together over some tasty brew at a local brewery. The last Denver Tweetup, which was on April 24, 2009, had over 150+ attendees filling up the Great Divide Brewing Co. Tap Room. Along with being prolific on Twitter, he also runs a professional photography company, K2 Photo Studio.

KUSA Headquarters – Channel 9 News
9NEWS offers breaking news, local headlines, weather and sports, along with national and world news. KUSA-TV is the number one local news source in Colorado. Backed by the strongest news gathering team in the business, an affiliation with NBC, a partnership with the Denver Post and Entercom, and a close relationship with USAToday, 9news.com is where news comes first.

After visiting some great local instructors in the Bay Area, we didn’t want to waste anytime visiting our next city. With that said, here we come Denver and Boulder!

We’re planning to head down to Denver and Boulder in May to meet up with our current active members on TeachStreet and folks who just want to learn more about us. We want to help teachers, coaches and experts like you learn more about using online tools like Craigslist, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and (of course) TeachStreet to market their business. So please come to the events with questions!

Meet with Sam Niccolls and Joseph Sunga in Denver/Boulder between May 7-9

What to expect at a TeachStreet Orientation:

• Networking with fellow teachers in the area
• Learn some tips on how to utilize TeachStreet better
• Open discussion and Q & A about marketing online

In order to attend each of the events, you must RSVP below. If you have friends or colleagues who may be interested, please forward them this blog post.

If you have any further questions, please e-mail me at joseph@teachstreet.com.

If you missed the events, here are the tips we shared with attendees to help them use TeachStreet to get new students.

Top 5 Tips for TeachStreet:

1. Add photos to your profile and classes
2. Add classes so you can be found
3. Request Reviews from your past students
4. Utilize our Craigslist Tool to promote your classes
5. Showcase your expertise by writing an article

Completing these steps will definitely get you ahead of the game for finding new students.  And, if you have any friends or colleagues who might like to learn more about TeachStreet, please let them know or suggest them as a teacher on TeachStreet.

For those of you on other popular social networks, you can also become a fan of TeachStreet on Facebook or follow us on Twitter.

In addition to sharing our favorite “how to’s” for how to use TeachStreet, we also had the opportunity to connect instructors and teachers with one another for support and networking.

If you live in Seattle or the Bay Area, TeachStreet members are meeting up regularly.  So, if you’re interested in connecting with a local group, email me (with “group member” in the subject line) and I’ll try my hardest to get you linked-up with groups forming in your area.

Here’s a great slide show of the events that my colleague Joseph put together:

As always, if you have any questions or suggestions for me — I’m more than happy to help.

You can reach me at: salar@teachstreet.com.

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They’re our current interns (Amanda, Annie and Gracie), and they just LOVE working for us.

If you’d like to join our team this spring and/or summer, check out our job posting for full details about what we’re looking for and how to apply.

To whet your appetite, here’s the basic overview:

Job Type: Internship. 10 hour/week (minimum), 15-20+ hours desired with 3-6 months commitment (with a two-week “trial” period for us to make sure we love each other). College credit available if school approves. Internships are paid; amount based on experience. All candidates should have their own laptop computer.

Intern Descriptions: Basically we’re looking for super smart, outgoing, Jacks-and-Jills-of-all-trades. All candidates should be optimistic, incredibly flexible and have a just-do-it attitude! (We have a strong “no sniveling” policy here at TeachStreet and we want proven “self-starters”.) Oh, you should also love learning new things.

We’re looking for undergrads of senior standing (outstanding juniors may also apply) as well as graduate school candidates (MBA’s etc.). Focus areas for internship will depend on intern’s background, expertise and the needs of the company. Four main focus areas for internships are: (1) Data & Quantitative analysis, (2) Customer Services/Community/Sales, (3) Engineering and (4) Product marketing, research and business development.

Click here to see the detailed intern description.

Looking forward to hearing from you! (And please feel free to pass this along to all the smarty-pants you know.)

]]> http://blog.teachstreet.com/community-events/teachstreet-intern-search-starts-today/feed/ 1 http://blog.teachstreet.com/community-events/recap-dance-to-the-beat-with-teachstreets-hip-hop-workshop/ http://blog.teachstreet.com/community-events/recap-dance-to-the-beat-with-teachstreets-hip-hop-workshop/#comments Wed, 11 Mar 2009 17:59:16 +0000 Joseph http://blog.teachstreet.com/?p=968 From salsa dancing to hip hop, we try our best to provide fun workshops for our community to learn new things. We were able to put together a Hip Hop Workshop last Saturday, where students were able to get an introduction to both break dancing and hip hop dancing from some great teachers.

A big thank you goes out to both Daniel Etcheto (Breakdancing Ninja) and Shinji Kasahara for taking the time to teach our community about what they do while providing a bit of a taste of their world of dancing. Along with the teachers, I’d also love to thank Marlo Martin for lending her space at eXit Space School of Dance. Without the help of the community of teachers and schools on TeachStreet, events like these wouldn’t happen, so please give you thanks today with a review or testimonial:

• Daniel Etcheto (Breakdancing Ninja): click here to leave a review
• Shinji Kasahara: click here to leave a review
• eXit Space School of Dance: click here to leave a review

For more photos/videos from the event, please check out our slide show below:

There were a lot of happy, and exhausted, faces when leaving the workshop, which was great. Some fo the students wanted to know when the next workshop or event is going to be in Seattle, so please if you’re interested too — send me an e-mail of what you want to learn. If you happened to have any questions or feedback, please e-mail at joseph@teachstreet.com.

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If you liked this post, recommend it to a colleague and/or click here to get updates via email or RSS. You can also become a fan of TeachStreet on Facebook or follow us on Twitter.

For more photos/videos from the event, please check out our slide show below:

Thanks to everyone who came to the event, I hope you were able to learn something new and was able to showcase your salsa skills on the dance floor later that night. We weren’t able to get the raffle done that night for the “5-Week Salsa Series”, so I’ve done it today. Drumroll please…

…and the winner is: Vernon Sackie!

Congratulations Vernon, hopefully these lessons will help in doing those spins that I’ve always had trouble with.

Hopefully it was a fun event for everyone and I would love to know more about what you, as in the community, would want to learn next! Please send your feedback to me at joseph@teachstreet.com.

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If you liked this post, recommend it to a colleague and/or click here to get updates via email or RSS. You can also become a fan of TeachStreet on Facebook or follow us on Twitter.

Photo courtesy of: Michael248 | Creative Commons

If you liked this post, recommend it to a colleague and/or click here to get updates via email or RSS. You can also become a fan of TeachStreet on Facebook or follow us on Twitter.

Penny is one of the best puppeteers in the West and is coming to Seattle for shows at the Seattle Children’s Museum Feb 19th and 20th. Her shows are evoke the kids’ imagination, and are a fun mix of children’s music, theater and art! Even more fun is that the Friday show is going to be in congunction with the museum’s Baby Sign Language class that day.

Here’s more info on the shows:

Where: Seattle Children’s Museum, 305 Harrison Street, Seattle WA 98109

Cost: Free with admission to the museum

When:

• Thursday, February 19, 2009 at 3pm: Dakari and the Kings Wishes
• Friday, February 20, 2009 at 10am: Turtle and the Rabbit