May 10, 2016

You’ve got to know when to hold ’em

There are a few good nuggets of wisdom in those Kenny Rogers lyrics. There are also some good lessons from Kenny Rogers the CEO, including how to hold on to great people. This weekend I was in Nashville visiting my cousin Mike Zimmerman, the drummer for Kenny Rogers. Mike joined four years ago to replace Kenny’s retiring drummer of 30 years. Kenny has kept his road team together for decades.

May 5, 2016

Investors with the Right Stuff

Have you done your research to know which investors have the right stuff for your company? Here’s a fresh example of the importance of doing your research and not thinking all money is equal. Last week, Boeing announced that General Nano (now “Veelo”) was one of 12 honored with a Supplier of the Year award. That’s 12 out of 13,000 suppliers! Congratulations to Joe Sprengard and his team. This is yet another great example of the innovation taking place here in #startupcincy.

May 3, 2016

Start with the E.N.D. in Mind

Have you been 100% clear and honest with yourself and partners about your expectations for your new startup? Do you know exactly what it will take to achieve those expectations? Based on my anecdotal experiences I’ve found that many founders could do a better job defining their expectations in qualitative AND quantitative terms, and then ask a lot of questions to develop a reality-based view of what is required to get there.

May 2, 2016

Playing the Carnegie

How do you get to the Carnegie? Practice, practice, practice! On Saturday, June 18 and again Saturday, June 25, I’ll join 40 business and community leaders to the stage at The Carnegie in Covington, KY (nope, not NYC) for the 9th Annual Suits That Rock concert, benefiting The Carnegie’s education department. All “Suits” by day, performers are trading in their business attire and briefcases for microphones to Turn the Radio Up!

April 22, 2016

Cracking into the Top 5 Fastest Growing Startup Cities

What factors determine the success rate of a population of venture-backed startups? And how is success measured? We can learn something by looking at the Top 5 fastest growing cities whose startups are collectively raising at least $200M.

April 18, 2016

If Data is the Answer, What is the Question?

How does bigger Big Data correspond to better products or services? Armed with the latest analytics tools, will data scientists now have all the answers? And who are data scientists anyhow?

April 12, 2016

ShareThis Launches New Service at F8

At the F8 conference today, ShareThis shared the stage with Facebook and their launch of Instant Articles. The new service, Social A/B, from ShareThis provides publishers with the ability to automatically test article headlines and optimize for sharing.

April 7, 2016

#GiveFirst + Authentic = #StartupCincy

What is the best way to create, build and sustain a startup community? Are there models we could adopt and expand? This is a discussion I’m always interested in furthering.

March 30, 2016

Ready to Rock!

In the last couple years I’ve had the opportunity to re-discover my hometown startup community. Since becoming a founding member of Cintrifuse in 2013, I’ve met with a majority of the 250+ Cintrifuse member startups.