In-Person Events

At Venturing Through Venture, we believe that in-person events are essential to the fulfillment of not only our mission, but also the potential of our ecosystem as a whole. A robust and serious forum must have in person events to allow for the spirited and serendipitous exchanges that can only happen face to face. While we acknowledge that virtual events are incredibly helpful in hosting faraway guests and lower barriers to participation by making attendance easier, it is our preference to hold in person events in the Los Angeles area whenever possible. .

That being said, we understand that many startup and venture capital communities have a proclivity for hosting lackluster, disorganized, and unhelpful events. This regrettable phenomenon has caused many in our ecosystem to avoid startup and vc community events entirely.

Here at Venturing Through Venture we approach our in person events using the following principles:

1. Events Should Exhibit Regularity

We believe that any successful forum requires that events be held at regular intervals throughout the year. Events that are held once a quarter or twice a year are insufficient for a book club, so they can never be sufficient for creating the flourishing forum we hope to build at Venturing Through Venture.

Regularity in event hosting benefits both us and our guests, as they facilitate the conditions for value creation for both parties. For us, it allows us to have a broader guest base for each event over time, giving each event the greater chance of representing the overall ecosystem rather than one segment of it. For our guests, this enables them to have a consistent place to network and meet the new people entering the ecosystem as they arrive throughout the year, as well as the opportunity to solidify existing contacts from previous meetings.

2. Events Should Be Held Frequently

We believe that a functioning forum requires frequent events in order to fulfill its purpose. The Forum Romanum, the original main forum in Ancient Rome, did not become what it did simply because it was called a forum. It became the historic institution we know today because it was used as a forum consistently, day in and day out, by generations of Romans across the centuries. Given that we want to become a meaningful and enduring participant in this ecosystem, we take the lesson of the Roman Forum to heart. Thus, we believe that in order for Venturing Through Venture to become the premier forum in this ecosystem we must have a frequent cadence of events throughout the year.

To that end, we seek to eventually have at least one in-person event per week in the Los Angeles. This cadence will benefit the guests of our events in multiple ways, such as by providing them a wide assortment of programming that matches their interests throughout a given month. Moreover, such a cadence also allows them to get regular on the ground insights and data from their fellow attendees via discussion which would not be available from other sources.

3. Events Should Be High Quality

Above all else, we believe that any in-person event should be of the highest quality for all attendees. Every event, whether its a weekly Trajectory Thursday event or a special marquee event with a VIP, should be an event that is seen as value additive and high quality by all in the room. We believe that events should be structured, with some programming such as a panel, rather than being an ill defined cocktail hour as so many events are.

Moreover, we believe that each event should be educational and informative. Whenever we have discussion panels, we seek to have individuals who can provide an educational and informative discussion for the audience, one rooted in the speakers’ achievements and knowledge in aerospace and/or defense tech. It doesn’t matter whether they have a title in front of their name; we only care about whether they can provide valuable insights about the topic at hand during the discussion.