Aron and I attended the MIT Enterprise Forum’s “Software 2.0: Turn and Burn on a Dime” event last night to see and be seen. We ran into some old friends and got introduced to a few new. Which is a something of a feat given our miserable networking/schmoozing skills. (Maybe I shouldn’t be so quick to lump Aron in with me. He’s a real charmer and a pleasant young man.)

I’ve attended these events sporadically over the past several years. I usually come away with a few valuable pieces of knowledge, and cruising through Kendall Square always gives me a little warm, resonant technology buzz. I feel like I’m in the right place at the right time.

One thing we learned last night was that we need to hone our pitch. We’ve been heads down coding for the past little bit. It is probably about time we give our marketing a little love. (Still, the few words we stammered out were well received. So we have that going for us.)

The main take away from the panel was that there is actually a place in the world for small companies using minimal capital and leveraging open source, the internet, and offshoring in every way you can.

The bad news, according to the panel, is that capital markets haven’t quite figured out how to deal with these sorts of companies. However, with Charles River Ventures’ recently announced QuickStart Seed Funding Program, I think they’re probably just about to figure it out. (I bet another handful of top tier firms launch similar programs in the next six months.)

The companies on the board got to market in a year or so working nights and weekends. This is good info for us which we’re using to gauge the sanity of our own schedules.

Okay, this has gotten far too long. So, I will wrap up suddenly and without further fanfare!