Ever feel like you can’t get connected to the right resources?
Momentum Partner, Grand Valley State University’s Center for Entrepreneurship & Innovation is pleased to bring you the Entreprnr Resource Guide. The site includes information about business acceleration and advisory services, access to capital, and incubation services. It also contains an information and education section to help entrepreneurs who are self-motivated learners.
Every Monday afternoon Momentum teams gather at Grand Valley State University’s Center for Entrepreneurship & Innovation to discuss the relevance of Guy Kawasaki’s book The Art of the Start and meet with area start up gurus. Momentum’s Art of the Start discussions are facilitated by Mike Morin, Momentum Team Director and SVP at MediaGuide .
Momentum teams were fortunate to have Amy Kraal, Senior Consultant and Partner at HROI join their discussion on recruiting.
So you’re a few months into your new venture, you’ve had a few small successes, but you’re running on fumes and need help to keep things going. Where do you begin? Well, hopefully you’ve already begun. Recruiting, like nearly every aspect of your start up relies heavily on your ability to network. Hopefully you’re always building connections and keeping track of those individuals who may be a good fit for your organization down the road. Now, how do you get quality people to want to work for your start-up? Amy Krall gave our Momentum teams plenty of great tips.
Every Monday afternoon Momentum teams gather at Grand Valley State University’s Center for Entrepreneurship & Innovation to discuss the relevance of Guy Kawasaki’s book The Art of the Start and meet with area start up gurus. This week’s Art of the Start discussion was facilitated by Momentum Mentor John Malnor, Vice President of Growth Initiatives at Steelcase.
Bootstrapping isn’t always pretty, but it should always be smart. Today’s start-ups know that bootstrapping is essential to staying lean and flexible. Another critical point for start-ups is smart cash flow. After all, you can’t bootstrap on negative cash flow for too long. Many startups fail because they can’t manage their cash flow. Effective bootstrapping can help make positive cash flow a reality.
The Art of Raising Capital in Michigan
Desiring to start or grow a tech-based business in Michigan? What do you do if your region is not known for investing in web technologies? What if you want to invest in web technologies but do not know where to begin?
Join us on Monday, June 28th for a frank and creative dialogue with our region’s investment community and entrepreneurs who have been there. We will discuss the current climate for raising and investing capital in Michigan, what it should be, and how we can get there.
Every Monday afternoon Momentum teams gather at Grand Valley State University’s Center for Entrepreneurship & Innovation to discuss the relevance of Guy Kawasaki’s book The Art of the Start and meet with area start up gurus. Momentum’s Art of the Start discussions are facilitated by Mike Morin, Momentum Team Director and SVP at MediaGuide .
The Dirty Work of Chaos
Four weeks into Momentum and our teams are in deep; deep into financial models, business plans, pitching techniques and, well . . . chaos. They aren’t alone. Every start-up faces the C word. Those that make it beyond this chaotic period are better for it. Navigating the chaos is a formative process for entrepreneurs and their ventures. It facilitates refinement, simplicity, and many times, success. On the other hand, this early chaos may be that last nail in the coffin; maybe that business really isn’t viable after all. Either way, meeting the chaos head on is imperative.
This week the Momentum crew met at The Factory our Wednesday night Speaker Dinner and had a great conversation with “Brad MacLean, founder of Creative Byline. Brad shared his story and some great insight with the Momentum entrepreneurs.
Jake Himmelspach
Published: June 1, 2010
Grand Rapids Business Journal
Refinement through increased flexibility has made a difference in the sophomore year of the 12-week program offered by Momentum, a local venture firm that provides support to Web-based technology start-ups.
“We learned so much from working with the three companies last year — what programming works. We shook a lot of creative people out of the trees to sign up for mentor gigs and providing different resources, which has been really fantastic,” said Bill Holsinger-Robinson, executive director of Momentum.
As entrepreneurs, you must make sure that your company remains safe by ensuring that nothing enters it that could harm the business and nothing leaves that reduces the value. This entails choosing the best business entity, protecting intellectual property, and complying with governmental regulations. This was the topic of last week’s Business Lunch. Tom Williams from McGarry Bair stopped by to give us the scoop on intellectual property protection and choosing the right entity.
Tom Williams is an intellectual property and litigation attorney. He specializes in successful resolution of intellectual property and general business disputes. He encourages his clients to seek IP protection for the following reasons:
AimWest-Momentum Meetup & Networking. Join us on June 16th at the WMU Downtown GR campus at 5:30 as the Momentum 2010 Start-ups present their ideas to the AimWest community! Everyone welcome-Networking at Tavern HQ directly following
Every Monday afternoon Momentum teams gather at Grand Valley State University’s Center for Entrepreneurship & Innovation to discuss the relevance of Guy Kawasaki’s book The Art of the Start and meet with area start up gurus. Momentum’s Art of the Start discussions are facilitated by Mike Morin, Momentum Team Director and SVP at MediaGuide.
Positioning: designed for success
This week, Ben Gott of Boxed Water is Better and TheCommon.org and Momentum Mentor Garrick Pohl of Crayon Interface joined our discussion on positioning.