13: Alex Lawrence Talks Building Startup Teams, Gaining Investors, & Growing Companies

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Alex Lawrence has been launching and growing successful companies for more than 20 years. His most recent partnership, Lendio, ranks #34 on the Inc. 500 list. He is also the Vice Provost of Innovation and Economic Development as well as the Interim Director of the Entrepreneurship Program at the John B. Goddard School of Business and Economics, both at Weber State University, where he teaches real-world strategies that are based on cutting edge, proven approaches used in todays business. He also is a regular contributor on Entrepreneurship for Forbes Magazine. and been featured on TechCrunch, 40 under 40 Top Entrepreneurs, V100 Top 100 Technology Entrepreneurs, E-50 Top 50 Social Entrepreneurs, WSU Entrepreneur Alumni of the Year.

10: Jon Bradford Of Techstars Explains Silicon Valley, Shifts In Investor Mindset & How To Be Successful

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Part 2 of our interview with Jon Bradford where he talks about major shifts in the startup accelerator world and how to gain traction.

Jon is Managing Director of TechStars London and has previously founded and worked on startup accelerators around the globe. He’s co-founder of F6S.com which has grown into one of the most important startup program platforms in the world, and has recently cofounded tech.eu to feature startup and tech news across Europe.

Philly’s Novotorium Announces New Seed Funding Program

_novotoriumPUBPhiladelphia’s Novotorium continues to support health, wellness, and nutrition startups across the Philadelphia region. We’ve covered Novotorium quite a bit over the last 18 months and their progress has been fun to watch.

The team backing the startup support organization wants to get in with companies in their wheelhouse as early as possible, sometimes backing companies as early as a business plan stage or during the development of a companies minimum viable product (MVP). More often than not, companies at that early a stage are turned away and can’t develop without funding, especially in health and wellness sectors.

Novotorium has announced a week’s worth of programming geared towards the earliest stage companies. The program runs the week of September 16-20 and at the end of the week those that participated will be part of a business plan competition on September 23rd. The competition will have a $2500 prize, but Novotorium will consider all participants for possible future investments ranging from $5,000 to $250,000.

Novotorium, Seed Funding, startups, Philly startups“Our goal with this program is to work with companies in the early stages of developing a business plan and creating the first iteration of their business. We are looking forward to helping them build out their plans and create their minimum viable products. We anticipate that we will be able to offer seed funding to several companies,” Novotorium Managing Director Stuart Segal said in a statement.

Novotorium’s Marketing and Business Director, Chuck Hall, summarized the program on their blog:

During each day of the week-long program — September 16 through 20 —  Novotorium partners will be on hand at Novotorium in Langhorne to offer classes and hold office hours on key parts of creating and launching a business — finance, law, marketing, sales, operations, lean startup, agile development, technology, health care products and markets and more. This is a completely free week of sessions, with the goal of helping entrepreneurs accepted into this program move forward with their business plans and business implementation efforts.

On Friday, September 20, business plans and business development efforts will be vetted, with approved startups slotted into presentation times for Monday, September 23. Entrepreneurs will be asked to present to a Novotorium panel that will then determine the winner of the competition. The winner will receive the top prize of $2,500 in cash and $3,000 in services at Novotorium over a 30-day period.

Companies wishing to participate in the program must apply on the Novotorium website using the ordinary application form. Applicants should note “TBD” in any part of the application that is yet to be determined. Applicants should also note “Applying for September Program” in the “What Else?” section of the application.

Interested? Hit the application link above

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Phoenix Arizona Has New Angels

Phoenix, Scottsdale and surrounding areas have a new group of angels in town ready to invest in the latest and greatest tech startups in the region. The Biltmore Angels was founded by a local group of Arizona State University Alumni. The group plans on investing in high potential startups and early stage companies in the immediate Phoenix area as well as the rest of the state.  The Biltmore Angels will also work closely with ASU to provide investment opportunities to ASU spinouts and select companies for the Venture Catalyst program.

“Lack of access to early stage capital has been an age-old problem in Arizona for most of our home-grown start-ups”, said Charlie Lewis, founding principal of Biltmore Angels. “We look forward to providing a new venue for our State’s most promising companies to showcase their wares in front of active Arizona investors”.

The partners in The Biltmore Angels have a wide range of business experience in the areas of investment, finance, business development and law.  Tom Connelly is President and Chief Investment Officer for Versant Capital Management. Charlie Lewis is Vice President of Venture Development for Arizona Technology Enterprises. The third member, Michael Hool is the Managing Partner at the Hool Law Group.

Nibletz spoke with Biltmore Angel Michael Hool who told us that they are offering mentorship through their partnership with TiE Arizona and Venture Catalyst and that they are looking to offer mentorship as part of the Biltmore Angels in the coming months.

“We look forward to engaging investors who have not previously been involved in organized angel investing processes.” said Hool in a release. “The idea of the Biltmore Angels is to provide another forum to connect not-previously engaged investors with each other and to the other state and regional angel groups for collaborative investments”.

“The formation of the Biltmore Angels is an incredible opportunity for startups in Arizona,” said Gordon McConnell, Executive Director of ASU Venture Catalyst, an early partner of the Biltmore Angels group. “Every client that the Venture Catalyst team works with needs assistance with finding and accessing funding and by partnering with the Biltmore Angels we will be able to provide those needed angel investment opportunities for our startups. That is an incredible value-add to the startup scene in Arizona.”

Arizona was recently named one of the fastest growing states in the country for startups.