First Tuesday Brings Real-World Parties To Virtual Community --- London Events -- Featuring Drinks, Deals and Jobs

-- Spread to the Continent

The Wall Street Journal Europe ,

Stephanie Gruner,
Staff Reporter ,
7 September 1999,
1396 words,
English,
WSJE,
1,
(Copyright (c) 1999, Dow Jones & Company, Inc.)

LONDON -- Julie Meyer recently got a bunch of phone calls asking if her organization, First Tuesday, was going public. "This is a cocktail party," she told the callers,
before hedging a bit: "This is a cocktail party, for now."

The hottest thing on London's Internet scene these days isn't a Website or a fancy new piece of software. It's this 11-month-old networking club whose parties have
become the place to see and be seen for London's wired set -- from scruffy designers, to hip venture capitalists and even the occasional bigwig banker.

For a few hours once a month, hundreds of people cram into a room to drink wine, schmooze, do deals and land jobs. Trouble is, the monthly events are so popular that
aspiring net-setters are being turned away by the hundreds.

Organizers have resorted to using lotteries for each event, held on the first Tuesday of the month. The next gathering is tonight, and some 700 people are seeking 400
slots. To cope with demand, organizers waited until Sunday to disclose the location. "It's like a rave," says co-founder John Browning, Wired magazine's European editor.

Now, Ms. Meyer, a venture capitalist with London-based NewMedia Investors Ltd., and First Tuesday's other organizers are taking the party on the road. Besides
London, the group will host gatherings tonight in 14 European cities as well as Sydney, Australia. Another 10 cities are in the works for October, including Moscow, Tel
Aviv, and Tallinn, Estonia.

The First Tuesday phenomenon is a bit like the salons in Silicon Valley at which Internet people swap ideas -- and business cards. Similar gatherings go on in European
cities such as Stockholm and Munich. However, few Internet-networking organizations, even in Silicon Valley, have taken off like this one.

Mostly by word of mouth and the Internet, First Tuesday's e-mail list has grown to 3,000 names. Demand has been so high that this month the group announced it would
host an event every Tuesday. In two hours, 650 people had registered for various events.

Why all the fuss? Just ask Beatrice Aidin. At a recent party, Ms. Aidin ran into 24-year-old entrepreneur Charles Muirhead, an adviser to a new online women's site. He
introduced her to the start-up's founders and a week later, Ms. Aidin, 28, had a new gig researching the Internet for Ready2Shop.com Ltd. "It's a fantastic job," she says.
"I love it."

Companies, too, are eager to hitch their names to the First Tuesday star. AOL Europe and Spanish banking group Banco Santander Central Hispano SA are sponsoring
First Tuesday gatherings. London publicity firm Gnash Communications Ltd. has just started promoting the group and fielding press calls at no charge. "Strategically
customers fall into two camps, those of fame and those of fortune," says Gnash's founder Narda Shirley. "First Tuesday is definitely the former."

There are no plans to go public, but venture capitalists have offered seed capital, valuing the event, which takes GBP 5 (7.55 euros) donations at the door, at as high as
GBP 4 million. Michele Appendino, a co-founder of venture capital firm Net Partners who travels from Milan to First Tuesday parties, says, "It would be a good idea to
invest there, but for the moment it's a community not a business."

It all began when Adam Gold, a former investment banker turned vice president of finance for Internet start-up Obongo Inc., traveled to Silicon Valley in the spring of
1998 to study the Internet industry. He was amazed by how easily people shared ideas and contacts. "I thought life is so easy out here compared to the U.K.," he says,
adding that British networking events were typically stiff, sit-down dinners with people wearing nametags.

Mr. Gold discussed the idea with a friend, Nick Denton, who agreed. The fellow Briton had also just returned from Silicon Valley, where as a technology correspondent
for the Financial Times, he used to hang out with a networking club called DrinkExchange. He returned to the U.K. to start an online news service called Moreover.com
Ltd. The two linked up with Americans Mr. Browning and Ms. Meyer. (Ironically, the two Brits have since moved to Silicon Valley.)

Plenty of people in Europe were doing clever things on the Internet, they believed. "The obvious thing to do seemed to be to put them all together and see what
happened," says Mr. Browning. They sent out 50 or so e-mails to friends, suggesting they forward the message to their friends.

On a Tuesday night last October, about 60 industry entrepreneurs and others packed into a pub in Soho. The next month, attendance at a similar event doubled. So the
group moved to bigger quarters. A recent gathering was held in media company Bloomberg's spacious basement, but for safety reasons security guards still had to turn
people away -- no matter who they were.

Jed Simmons, former head of Excite@Home Corp.'s international operation and an early First Tuesday guest speaker, was among those sent walking. Part of the price
of success, he says, "is the disco or the nightclub phenomenon, which is, `I just have to be there.'" He's not bitter, he says, but adds, "I never would wait in line for a
nightclub, much less a nightclub for First Tuesday."

News about First Tuesday spread fast, especially given its reputation as a place to find jobs and money. David Lethbridge, co-founder of wedding Web site Confetti.co.uk
raised $3 million (2.83 million euros) through First Tuesday contacts. "It's a very exciting time," says Mr. Lethbridge. "It's also quite funny in some respects how attitudes
have changed. When we started our business, people were nervous to invest. Now they're almost nervous not to."

That means busy times for firms like London-based Atlas Venture, which led the Confetti investment. In addition to Confetti, says Christopher Spray of Atlas, the firm has
invested in three other Internet start-ups it discovered at First Tuesday and is considering investing in three more. Mr. Spray is an avid First Tuesday attendee, typically
showing up Silicon Valley style -- jeans and a blazer -- with two or three other partners. They sweep the room, returning home with fists full of business cards.

As word of the events spread further, more and more investors, consultants, and bankers appeared. At an event held this May, three bankers in pinstripes sat in a corner
reading newspapers as if sent against their will by their bosses.

Speaker Rob Hersov noted the change. "It's a bit suity in here" quipped the founder of Sportal UK Ltd., an Internet sports site. As Mr. Hersov told the packed room how
life had changed after raising $32 million in seed capital, aggressive senior bankers from companies such as Morgan Stanley Dean Witter elbowed their way through the
crowd in search of the next Jeffrey Bezos, founder of Amazon.com Inc.

Although First Tuesday is a magnet for lots of high-strung young creative types, in large part the buzz is the result of the founders' unusual networking skills.
Ms. Meyer, in particular, rivals Internet guru Esther Dyson when it comes to building up contacts. The tall, blond Californian already has some 4,000 names in her
Rolodex -- after only a little more than a year in London.

Unlike her cyber-savvy image, Ms. Meyer, 33, keeps contacts in a traditional address book, plus two plastic boxes filled with cards, two vinyl business card holders, and
a tattered manila envelope, which is home to her hottest prospects. Most names, however, she can rattle off the top of her head.

Quick to pick up the phone, or shoot off an e-mail, she called stranger Karl-Christian Agerup in Norway recently, seeking to plant the First Tuesday flag. The ex-
McKinsey consultant turned Internet entrepreneur will host a First Tuesday in Oslo this month.

It wasn't exactly a cold call, Ms. Meyer notes. "Nobody's a stranger" in this business, she explains. "Everybody's a friend of a friend of a friend."

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