Business Incubators

Business Incubator Series: Interview With Ken Kousky, CEO, MidMichigan Innovation Center, Midland, Michigan (Part 1)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold

I am talking to Ken Kousky, CEO of MidMichigan Innovation Center, which is a privately funded, nonprofit organization working to help entrepreneurs grow their businesses in central Michigan. MMIC operates a 112,000 square foot business incubator with significant support from The Dow Chemical Company. The center operates with minimal staff and uses resources from around the region to create collaborative partnerships for the benefit of its tenants, virtual members, and aspiring entrepreneurs. Read the full article »

Business Incubator Series: An Interview With Paul Bragiel, Managing Partner, i/o Ventures, San Francisco, California (Part 1)

By guest author Irina Patterson and Mridula Velagapudi

I am talking to Paul Bragiel, managing partner of i/o Ventures, which is a three-month accelerator program for technology entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley. The partners of i/o Ventures come from companies like MySpace and BitTorrent, and their mentors are from Yelp, Digg, Mint, Mochi Media, and OpenDNS. They invest up to $25,000 if a startup is selected, and in return for the investment and mentorship, i/o Ventures usually gets 8% of the company in common stock. Read the full article »

Business Incubator Series: An Interview With David Cohen, Founder And CEO, Startup Accelerator TechStars – Boulder, Colorado (Part 1)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold

I am talking to David Cohen, the founder and CEO of TechStars.

Irina: Hi, David. Let’s start with a brief overview.

David: I’m the founder and CEO of TechStars, which is a mentorship-driven startup accelerator for Internet companies. Tech Stars funds 10 companies at a time in each of four cities each year. The cities are New York, Boston, Seattle, and Boulder. The mentorship program is three months long. At the end of the program, the companies get to pitch their ideas to investors. About 70 percent of the companies go on to raise outside capital after the program. Read the full article »

AngelList, CapLinked, And Financing Marketplaces

AngelList has been generating  a lot of buzz recently. Today, Business Insider has a piece claiming that they are scaring VCs to death. Really? I have a hard time believing that! In any case, I thought this would be a good time to give readers my perspective on AngelList, as well as other fund raising services that are coming into the market like CapLinked, which has recently raised money from star investors like Peter Thiel. Other related services are SecondMarket, Kickstarter, ProFounder and Invested.In, the latter three specifically focused on crowd funding (not CapLinked’s approach), while the first is more of a brokerage.

Read the full article »

Business Incubator Series: An Interview With Dr. Tom O’Neal, Executive Director, University of Central Florida’s Business Incubation Program — Orlando, Florida (Part 1)

By guest author Irina Patterson and Mridula Velagapudi

I am talking to Tom O’Neal, executive director of the University of Central Florida’s Business Incubation Program which is a University-driven community partnership that provides training, infrastructure, and professional services for entrepreneurs in central Florida. Read the full article »

1M/1M: VCs, Angels, Incubators, Accelerators – What WE Do With Your Rejects

Last week I wrote the post VCs, Angels, Incubators, Accelerators – What Are You Doing With Your Rejects? following which I had a number of significant private discussions which I curate here for the benefit of others who have the same kinds of questions. Overall, I think it will help the ecosystem better understand how we simply supplement existing resources and add value. Existing resources include incubators, accelerators, financing marketplaces like AngelList, and of course VCs and angels. Read the full article »

Business Incubator Series: An Interview With Skip Simms, President And CEO, Ann Arbor SPARK — Ann Arbor, Michigan (Part 1)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold

I am talking to Skip Simms, president and CEO of Ann Arbor SPARK, a nonprofit business development consortium in Michigan that works in partnership with the Michigan Economic Development Corporation (MEDC), the state’s economic development agency, to help early-stage entrepreneurs and growing companies. Read the full article »