Last night we presented lil’grams for the first time publicly at the Web Innovator’s Group sponsored by MSFT and VenRock Capital . The event is put on by VenRock’s David Beisel who invites three unfunded startups to present to a group of non-paying attendees as the “Main Dish” and several more as “Side Dish” presenters. We were fortunate to be selected as main presenters (posting here) along with a shopping cart solution and ad-content manager.

At the outset, we expected 200 or so folks, which would have been great. When we showed up, David said he expected 700-800, and when the crowd showed, it was standing room only and probably closer to 1000.

I gave the background and overview of the app, then jumped into posting from the web, email, and the new desktop application.  I quickly showed the Baby Book off and our e-mail templates.  There was one small “oh crap” moment – Gmail was bugging me for the password so my mail demo broke – oops :)

The reception was pretty solid, although we came in second in the crowd-vote for best presentation [some say it was rigged :) not us]. Ranvir and Adarsh manned the booth along with some of our friends and loved ones. We met a bunch of very cool people and got a lot of support from the Boston web community (Thanks to Beta House and WoodGroove)

Here’s a sample of the reaction tweets:

• josephflaherty: “Lil’grams was my fave at #webinno. Photo sharing targeted towards people with kids. No new tech, just a REALLY nice UI and service setup”
• MassHighTech: Dave Beisel on Lil’Grams: “That’s a slick interface’ … and the interface works on anything, not just baby photos.”
• jvyduna: “Love Lil’grams at #webinno – my favorite demo. Nice UI.”
• MassHighTech: “Standing room only at #webinno. Lil’Grams got hoots ‘n hollers. Online baby photo sharing service…Crowd fave among the parents here”

See them all here.