TWIA #49: Sean Bonner from Bode Media & Neoteny Labs

In our special interview series before the magic 50th episode, we have Sean Bonner (@seanbonner) from Bode Media and Neoteny Labs on our studio. While he is here to conduct business clinics for Neoteny Labs and JFDI Asia, he will also be attending Echelon 2010. We interviewed him in Hackerspace SG and tapped his brain on the lessons learned from mentoring young entrepreneurs and thoughts on the micro-venture capital space. Sean also shares with us what he looks forward in the coming Echelon 2010. You can go directly to TWIA website or listen the podcast here in SGEntrepreneurs.

About Sean Bonner from Bode Media & Neoteny: Sean Bonner has been involved with media, online and off, for the better part of the last 16 years. He has been featured in GOOD, Wired, Playboy, Salon, Forbes and others, been included in Yahoo!’s Best of the Web, and has spoken at conferences, events, and coffee shops around the world. As co-founder and CEO of Bode Media Inc, Sean helped create Metblogs, the worlds largest network of local media blogs.

As a consultant, he has helped The Groop, Jack In The Box, LAPD, Suicide Girls, Obey Giant, Shopzilla and others interact with their customers, clients, and fans online. He also speaks frequently at conferences covering blogs, media, networks and grassroots journalism. Recently he’s spoken at IzeaFest (Orlando, FL), SXSWi (Austin, TX), Roboexotica (Vienna, Austria) and Re:Publica (Berlin, Germany).

Sean is well connected to the startup scene in Asia as one of the guys behind Neoteny Labs, a venture fund and incubator which opened its doors in Q1 2010. Neoteny Labs aims to find and grow some of the most interesting technology startups in Asia and the Middle East. It is one of seven technology incubators chosen to participate in the S$50 million National Research Foundation (NRF) Technology Incubation Scheme (TIS).

As an event organizer, Sean brought Neoteny Singapore Camp 1 (NSC1) to Singapore which brought together a fascinating mix of entrepreneurs and investors, sharing possibilities over a 2 day event. Check this out for an interesting discussion around startups from that event. He also brought BarCamp to Los Angeles, produced the first art exhibition comprised solely of phonecam images, ran art auctions and benefits for the West Memphis Three. Sean has also been a guest blogger/contributor for BoingBoingVideo and hosted the iPhone game review show iPhun.

He is one of the founders of Crash Space, a Los Angeles hackerspace and is the creative director for the brand R5315T. Prior to all this, Sean helped build the groundbreaking contemporary art gallery sixspace exhibiting artists such as Glen E. Friedman, Shepard Fairey, Coop, Chad Robertson and others. He also ran a record label and produced several records by Hot Water Music and Less Than Jake to name a few. He’s also managed a design firm, worked as Sr. Designer for Playboy.com and Creative Director for Victory Records.

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