Excellent! So glad to hear you're doing this. Of course I can't make the first one but will put the next one on my calendar. Venue-wise, if you're looking to mix it up a bit, I vote having some in other parts of town - Addison, Plano, Uptown, maybe one in Grapevine to help out the Ft. Worth folks.

Alex - I've been following your tweets for a bit now and love what you're doing. I'm a native Texan who lived in the Valley during the first boom and now travel back and forth from McKinney. I've tried multiple times to establish connections here in Dallas and haven't had a lot of luck. The key factor that I think is missing is a camaraderie established by regular social outings. Perhaps because the area is so big and we're all spread out in far-flung corners - not really sure why. I do know that there is a palpable vibe that's important to fostering a startup community and I haven't felt it here. The reigning climate is left over from TI and telecom and no other sector has stepped up to take its place. I do agree with an earlier comment that Dallas hasn't had its big hit and agree in spades that the VC community - at least what I know of it - is hesitant to invest in anything risky.

Austin has managed to do it quite well - what's their secret? They've become a hub of semantic technologies, among others. What sectors are people seeing in our area? Anything dominating?