Missoula Crowd Gathers to Chat About Internet Entrepreneurship

By Courtney Lowery, 3-07-07

As evidenced here, a good time was had by all at our NewWest.Net Live event at the Missoula Art Museum Wednesday night featuring Montana internet entrepreneurs Jen Boulden (pictured above at left), John Masterson and New West’s Jonathan Weber (pictured above at right).

Jen came to talk about her green tip company, Ideal Bite, and John came to talk about Grupthink, a social knowledge-based site he started in Missoula. With Jonathan, the panel shared knowledge on raising money, recruiting for and staffing a start up company, current and past trends online, building traffic and buzz to your Web site and of course, what it means to do business in Montana.

Click here to listen to (or download) audio from the discussion.

Now, for more photos:

(Photos by Chris Lombardi)

John Masterson talks about Grupthink. One choice quote from John: When asked what motivated him to take the risk of a startup, John said, “We wanted to do something that had some small kernel of a chance of being amazing.” He later added, “That is the light on the hill.”

The crowd listens to Jen and Jonathan talk about their companies. One choice quote from Jen: Responding to the same question, Jen talked about the lean beginnings of her company and what spurred Ideal Bite. She said, “It was just this thing that took over us and honestly, I didn’t even think about it—even when you’re like, ‘how can I write about organic foods when all you can think about is ramen?’”

Audience member Hank Green, an internet entrepreneur himself with his site, EcoGeek, helpfully pointed out that there is organic ramen now.