FTF Celebrates 10 Years!

I designed these two posters for a pretty big event in coming up. It is a double celebration - the twentieth anniversary of the Technology Innovation Center, one of the country's leading incubators for tech startups AND the freakin' TENTH anniversary of FTF (Face To Face). The annual parties for FTF have grown to be very well attended by current incubator tenants, TIC alumni, and curious bystanders.

Pretty amazing for an incubator that was told over and over that it should not, could not, and would not exist by various parties of varying degrees of ignorance. As for FTF, it started as a few fledgling companies coming up for air and sharing a few beers and chips at the end of another endless work week. A decade later we're celebrating that willingness to share and build a community among seeming competitors.

As a founder of FTF, I would personally like to thank co-founder Larry Mills-Gahl, Jim Currie, Dennis Director, Charles Smith, Rob Jacobi, Andrea Winship, Louise Burton, and Tim Lavengood for their faith, hard work, time and money over the last decade. I believe it was worth it. Thanks to the brave souls who showed up at our small, dingy joint for around 500 FTF parties, big and small. Some of you have created companies like Google and Peapod or invented the Skip Doctor or were successful enough to become venture capitalists yourself, while others have seen the harsh, brutish side of entrepreneurship. I salute all of you.

And thanks to Dan Kelch of Lulu's for all the great food.