The local (St. Louis area) pitch-fest that we tried last Friday turned out to be a great success - lots of fun, some interesting ideas, and perhaps the best part was the beginning of an open, entrepreneur-oriented community event.

This is a photo of all of those who pitched their ideas - I think we had nearly 20 groups.

Btw, at the top of the list for doing better next time is bringing a legitimate camera ... but the iphone will have to do for this one.

Alex Miller has more detail (including a partial list of companies), and Dave Blankenship posted on his experiences as a participant.

I'm glad to see this get started. While there's no doubt that net-based communities are the lifeblood of our business, there's definitely real value to everyone to have a broader, deeper tech startup community within a beer's reach ... or at least a short drive!

Congrats to everyone who helped pull this together, including Jim Brasunas (ITEN), Alex Miller (Terracotta), Tom Nierman, our very own Kevin Haar and Jean Roberson and the rest of the mentors, the folks at BusyEvents (check out their photostream) and anyone who else who gave us a hand.

I'm definitely looking forward to the next one.