Diving head first into my internship last Tuesday, there was no time to waste as I quickly became a part of the Silicon Beach Fest 2014 team—my first exposure into the LA tech and start-up world! As an intern at Radix, work has been fast-paced. You can imagine how eager I was to see the team’s hard work and collaboration come together. Before I dive into weekend details, here’s a little background on the event:

This past Wednesday, Kevin Winston and his Digital LA team kicked off their third annual Silicon Beach Fest taking place in none other than “Silicon Beach” which encompasses the neighboring communities in and around Santa Monica. Silicon Beach is the Westside region of the LA Metro area, home to over 500 tech startups. Considered the second or third largest tech hub in the world, companies like Google, Yahoo, BuzzFeed, and AOL give truth to its name.

Silicon Beach Fest gives the tech community an opportunity to celebrate LA’s top digital innovators. SBF recognizes LA tech, entertainment, and startups through panels, keynotes, workshops, mixers, and competition. Attendees included startup CEOs, accelerators, VCs, investors, music and movie execs, agencies, content creators, social media gurus, developers, and more from LA, our neighbors in Silicon Valley, OC, San Diego, New York, and beyond.

This was the third year for Silicon Beach Fest and celebrated the many successes of LA tech companies within the past year.

(For example…)

Acquisitions to be noted:

· Oculus being acquired by Facebook by $2B

· Maker Studios acquisition by Disney for more than $500M

· And more!

After making the trip down from the University of Oregon, I was in for a whirlwind of a good time as my first few days on the job included creating briefing docs, communicating with clients and media, and helping out the Radix team prepare for Silicon Beach Fest. I was definitely thrown into the fire my first few days here in LA, but I wouldn’t have wanted it any other way.

Silicon Beach Fest 2014 kicked off Wednesday evening with a few cocktails as the LA tech community gathered enjoying the many drinks, conversations, and wetsuit-wearing servers at the Viceroy Hotel in Santa Monica.

Thursday started bright and early as press, attendees, and speakers began rolling in around 8:30 a.m. Patrick Soon-Shiong—surgeon-entrepreneur, UCLA professor, and partial owner of the Lakers—kicked off Thursday’s keynote as panels and fireside chats followed. One panel I found particularly interesting was the “Investing in Silicon Beach” panel that hosted Eva Ho, General Partner at Susa Ventures, Matt McCall, Partner at Pritzker Group Venture Capital, David Travers, Partner at Rustic Canyon Partners, and Gerard Casale, Managing Director at TYLT Lab. Investor relations is not something I was very familiar with, so it was fascinating hearing from such established investors, as well as the dos and don’ts of investing in tech startups.

This is something I really enjoyed about SBF—it wasn’t focused on just one aspect of the tech start-up industry—there were so many different panels from “Women Founders: What It Takes to Succeed,” to “Fireside Chat with Chet Pipkin, Belkin Founder and CEO.” This particular fireside chat with Chet from Belkin was particularly informative. As someone who has built and sustained a global company for over 30 years here in Los Angeles, Chet gave some very real and honest advice for entrepreneurs; advice as simple as,

“Service the goddamn customer.”

I loved it.

Thursday concluded with some more cocktails (we work hard, right?) and started right back up again Friday morning with more keynotes, panels, and chats. Our very own Nicole Jordan (founder of Radix—woop woop!) was on the panel “PR for Startups and Content Distribution” and she rocked it! My first week on the job and I couldn’t be more proud to be a part of the Radix team.

Silicon Beach Fest ended with some surfing lessons and beach volleyball on Saturday afternoon, concluding another awesome SBF weekend. Silicon Beach Fest was a great introduction into the world of LA tech and allowed me to meet tons of inspiring entrepreneurs, business owners, and tech gurus. SBF kick started my awesome week here at Radix Collective and I can’t wait to see what else I have in store for the summer.

—Kelly