GCVA Rocks Oakley!

The GCVA broke new ground with a very entrepreneurial event at the 20th Century Theatre in Oakley. The meeting delivered two startup company presentations, 249Smiles.com and AHL-TECH that are on the trail of their initial funding. Tim Schigel, CEO of ShareThis, keynoted on the magic that entrepreneurs must master to create a successful venture funded company.

Then – the Red Herrings took the stage — 9 Cincinnati entrepreneurs put on a great show with the crowd crying for more. Most importantly, there was a buzz in the air. Venture capitalist actually loosened their ties and entrepreneurs soaked it up. A number of InOneWeekend alumni gathered to celebrate.

“Conversation crystallizes genius!” and the crowd really connected and talked it up. The entertainment is tough to beat – but the GCVA is truly focusing on engaging entrepreneurs and investors to create a more vibrant startup community in the region.

AlphaLab Extends Deadline

AlphaLab, Pittsburgh’s newest quickstart accelerator has extended the application deadline to October 30, 2008. Very, very early stage companies can apply to receive space, advice and a $25,000 grant while giving AlphaLab a 3% stake in the new venture. Weekly educational sessions and two full-time, onsite staff provide an accelerated development environment for startups. Over 60 companies applied for the six slots in the current ‘class.’

If you want to check it out, go to the AlphaLabs website or better yet, go visit AlphaLabs on October 28. Starting at 8:00 am, they will be celebrating their first demo day — where all 6 AlphaLabbers will be presenting the results of their 20-week journey. The event is expected to be SRO with angels and venture capital attending along with entrepreneurs, university faculty and interested parties.

To apply, just click here!
And don’t forget to come back to Cincinnati with all of your newfound skills, talents, connections and experience.

Innovation – As essential as oxygen for entrepreneurial growth

Thanks to Steve Boord’s (Neyerholdings.com) Stanford Biz School network, 70 entrepreneurs, investors and friends gathered to break bread with three stellar entrepreneurs from Silicon Valley! The credentials were incredible: Judith Estrin (CEO of JLabs, former CTO of Cisco Systems, Board member of Disney and FEDEX), Reid Hoffman (CEO/Founder of LinkedIn, former VP at PayPal, Angel Investor) and Dr. Ellen Levy (Advisor to Draper Fisher Jurvetson, VP Corp Development & Strategy at LinkedIn, Industry Fellow at the UC Berkeley’s Center for Entrepreneurship & Technology) and that’s just a drop in the bucket.

The discussion centered around Judy Estrin’s new book “Closing the Innovation Gap!” Andy Erickson’s blog (TheFutureValueofBusiness) is a great synopsis of the content. Please read it!

Closing the Innovation Gap by Judith Estrin

The message from these folks was clear:  Innovation is critical to the success of entrepreneurs, corporations and the world. The US was clearly focused on innovation before it became clearly focused on short term profits and risk reduction. The world has changed: Enron, 9/11 and the current meltdown have shaken the confidence of Americans. We can and we must return to a focus on innovation, for that is what creates value in the world — not financial transactions.

InOneAfternoon with WallStick

Y’all remember the successful InOneWeekend event over the summer of 2008! 100 people, 3 days, 1 company! LifeSpoke.com was created in just a short weekend!

But more importantly, 100 people immersed themselves in the startup process, built a broader network and increased their passion and motivation to start a business. Meredith Holthaus took the InOneWeekend experience and applied it to her own startup idea. Check out Andy’s blog on the InOneAfternoon event!

And to the rest of the IOW alumni and prospects, keep those ideas flowing. If you want to stay involved, let us know (us being the InOneWeekend Czar –Elizabeth Edwards of Neyer Holdings eedwards@neyerholdings.com), and we’ll help you put it together. NKU and UC will be holding mini-IOW events for their entrepreneurship students — if you would like to join in — let me know!Technorati Tags: startup, inoneweekend, entrepreneur

Cincinnati scores at MidAmerica Healthcare Venture Forum

The MidAmerica Healthcare Venture Forum visited Cincinnati for its 6th gathering and brought over 300 people to hear keynotes and companies present their ideas and pitches. More than 54 venture firms were represented and at least 9 Cincinnati region companies presented as well. Thanks to all the Cincinnati area sponsors and to Carol Frankenstein of BioStart that recruited the conference to our fair city.