Business Incubator Series: Interview With Kerry Rupp, Managing Partner, DreamIt Ventures – Philadelphia And New York City (Part 5)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Praveen Karoshi

Irina: What tools do you use to accomplish your mission?

Kerry: Because we don’t specialize in a specific industry, protocol, or niche, and we don’t specialize in a particular stage – they are obviously all early-stage companies – we don’t think they need a curriculum or set of processes. There are a series of topics of interest to them, so we bring in speakers. For example, we know we are going to have investors, marketing specialists, and social media people.

There are certain set of topics that are interesting to all early-stage companies. But, we really work with each company to see where it is with the appropriate set of factors for it to make a measureable impact in three months, and every piece of advice and sense of direction we give to each team is relative to where that team is and what it needs specifically. >>>

Business Incubator Series: Interview With Julia Rosen, Associate Vice-President For Innovation And Entrepreneurship, Arizona State University, Venture Catalyst At ASU — Scottsdale, Arizona (Part 3)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold

Julia: Many times, our early-stage entrepreneurs don’t have the resources to pay professional service providers. They’re much more interested in working with a group of bright graduate students. So, we connect entrepreneurs with students who might be able to perform certain services for them. >>>

Business Incubator Series: Interview With Kerry Rupp, Managing Partner, DreamIt Ventures – Philadelphia And New York City (Part 4)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Praveen Karoshi

Irina: How many applicants do you accept?

Kerry: We will take 15 companies in [each of] the upcoming sessions, and that is the maximum we accept because we think there is really good interaction between them at that number. It will be a maximum of 60 people, probably more like 45, if history proves to be the case again. >>>

Business Incubator Series: Interview With Julia Rosen, Associate Vice-President For Innovation And Entrepreneurship, Arizona State University, Venture Catalyst At ASU — Scottsdale, Arizona (Part 2)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold

Julia: Maybe I should give you a bit of context about to why we’re doing this and why our programs are, perhaps, a little different from the others you’ve presented in your interviews. Of course, we are a public university. We are the largest public university in the United States. We are the only public research university in the greater Phoenix area, which is an area of four million people. >>>

Business Incubator Series: Interview With Kerry Rupp, Managing Partner, DreamIt Ventures – Philadelphia And New York City (Part 3)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Praveen Karoshi

Kerry: So, if we take a company like Scvngr, which is among our alumni, when they applied [the founder] was a 17-year-old from Princeton who was a technologist, very savvy, visionary, but he really needed someone to build out more of the front-end sales and marketing operations and customer support side of the business. >>>

Business Incubator Series: Interview With Kerry Rupp, Managing Partner, DreamIt Ventures – Philadelphia And New York City (Part 2)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Praveen Karoshi

Irina: What are your core benefits?

Kerry: We provide a lot of the same types of services that you will see in other accelerator programs, but I will describe them just to make sure we talk about them, and then we will talk about a couple of ways that we are different. >>>

Business Incubator Series: Interview With Julia Rosen, Associate Vice-President For Innovation And Entrepreneurship, Arizona State University, Venture Catalyst At ASU — Scottsdale, Arizona (Part 1)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold

I am talking to Julia Rosen, associate vice president for innovation and entrepreneurship at Arizona State University about the Venture Catalyst program at ASU.

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

Julia: The Venture Catalyst is the new entrepreneurial platform at Arizona State University that combines several previously separate programs. Our first program was launched in 2004. The Venture Catalyst is a broader platform than that first program, which focused on training entrepreneurs in the greater Phoenix area. It was not necessarily a physical place where people could come and learn and advance their ideas. >>>

Business Incubator Series: Interview With Kerry Rupp, Managing Partner, DreamIt Ventures – Philadelphia And New York City (Part 1)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Praveen Karoshi

I am talking to Kerry Rupp, managing partner at DreamIt Ventures, which is an intense three-month location-based program where entrepreneurs receive seed funding, mentoring and peer support, and introductions to potential investors and partners. DreamIt’s goal is not only to support entrepreneurs’ efforts but to truly challenge them to reduce key risks, prove their customer segmentation, and develop strong revenue models and customer acquisition strategies. Founded in 2008, DreamIt currently runs two sessions a year, in New York City in the summer and Philadelphia in the fall. >>>