Twin Cities Startup Week 2017: Full Schedule

9:00am CDT

Free Co-Working at WeWork

Do you have an hour to kill between Startup Week events?

Need a change of pace for the day, and want to work from somewhere new?

Come snag a coffee or Redbull, and knock out some emails at one of our Free Co-Working locations!

Monday October 9, 2017 9:00am - 5:00pm CDT
WeWork

Free Coworking Space

9:00am CDT

Free Co-Working at WeWork

Tuesday October 10, 2017 9:00am - 5:00pm CDT
WeWork

Free Coworking Space

4:00pm CDT

How to Finance Your Startup

Gopher Angels have invited experts from various financing options to share their knowledge with entrepreneurs about how to finance their companies.

The panel will include Jeff Robbins, attorney with Messerli & Kramer, sharing his knowledge about crowdfunding; Chris Styring from Venture Bank, covering the banks role in financing; Pat Dillon with SBIR on non-dilutive grant opportunities; Sara Russick with Capita3 on Venture Capital, and Dave Russick with Gopher Angels on angel funding.

Speakers

Pat Dillon

Director, MNSBIR, Minnesota High Tech Association

Pat Dillon has facilitated more than $100M in SBIR/STTR funding since 1994. As the “go-to-person” in Minnesota, Pat is a recognized leader and supporter of innovation and entrepreneurship nationally. She is a 1999 recipient of the prestigious Small Business Administration’s... Read More →

Jeffrey C. Robbins

Attorney, Messerli | Kramer

Attorney Messerli Kramer, startup attorney, Founder of AngelPolleNation, CrowdFunding Expert, Advisory Board of Gopher Angels

David Russick

Managing Director, Gopher Angels

Managing Director, Gopher Angels. Entrepreneur and angel investor.

Sara Russick

Director, Partner, Gopher Angels, Capita3

Managing Director, Gopher Angels, Founder and Partner CAPITA3, entrepreneur

Chris Styring

Chris Styring is a Vice President and Commercial Lending Officer with Venture Bank where he works closely with early stage companies. He partners with founders to develop financial strategies that facilitate growth and best serve their unique business. Prior to joining Venture... Read More →

Tuesday October 10, 2017 4:00pm - 5:30pm CDT
WeWork

Investor Track

8:00am CDT

From Bootstrap to Big League: Brand Lessons From Tech Startups, For All Startups

Tech: It’s where we hear stories of unprecedented growth, driven by bold strategies, fearless execution, dizzying transformation, and enviable investment momentum. But what’s really behind these stories? And what can we learn from this industry’s mastery of speed and spin?

Join us for a panel discussion on the trials and triumphs of startup branding as we hear from visionary founders and leaders of some of Minnesota’s top tech companies. Learn how they’ve grown their business and brand story at every stage, be inspired by their scrappy and creative growth-hacks, and come away with actionable ideas to infuse your go-to-market programs.

Our panelists include:

Clay Collins, Co-Founder and Board Chairman, Leadpages

Carson Kipfer, Co-Founder and Principal Designer, SportsEngine

Chip Pearson, Managing Partner, Jamf Software

Phil Soran, Co-Founder and Executive Chairman, Flipgrid

Peter Zaballos, CMO, SPS Commerce

Moderator: Jennifer Zick, Founder and Owner, Authentic Brand

Presented in partnership with the Minnesota Interactive Marketing Association (MIMA) and their annual MIMA Summit (happening the following day on Thursday, October 12), we’ll be diving deep with these tech leaders on topics including:

Launching a new brand or product to the market
The role of culture in shaping your brand story
Building a raving fan base, and the value of influence
Raising capital and attracting investors
Storytelling for mergers, acquisitions, and exits
Failure as a success metric
And more.

See you there!

Moderators

Jennifer Zick

CEO, Authentic Brand

Founder of Authentic Brand: Fractional Marketing Leadership | Strategy & Planning | Brand & Messaging. Uniquely equipped to support businesses powered by EOS / Traction. Jennifer Zick is a passionate and driven leader with nearly 20 years of B2B marketing experience in innovative... Read More →

Speakers

Clay Collins

Co-Founder and Board Chairman, Leadpages

Carson Kipfer

Cofounder & Principal Designer, SportsEngine

Carson Kipfer is Principal Designer at SportsEngine, which he co-founded in 2008. Carson leads the product design vision and inspires holistic design alignment across the organization. He is a passionate advocate of user-centered design. He evangelizes the SportsEngine cause and core... Read More →

Chip Pearson

Managing Partner, Jamf Software

Phil Soran

Co-Founder and Executive Chairman, Flipgrid

Phil Soran is a serial technology entrepreneur who was inducted into the 2016 Minnesota Business Hall of Fame. Phil cofounded Flipgrid in 2015, and serves as the Executive Chairman. Flipgrid is an educational technology company that was spun out of the University of Minnesota. Previously... Read More →

Peter Zaballos

CMO, SPS Commerce

As chief marketing officer, Peter Zaballos oversees all aspects of the SPS Commerce’'s marketing and product management, and is responsible for creating business value from the company's market leadership and innovative technology. Previously, Peter held executive leadership positions... Read More →

Wednesday October 11, 2017 8:00am - 9:00am CDT
WeWork

Marketing & Advertising Track

9:00am CDT

Free Co-Working at WeWork

Wednesday October 11, 2017 9:00am - 5:00pm CDT
WeWork

Free Coworking Space

9:15am CDT

Sprint Before You Hack: A Story Sprint Workshop to Prepare You For Successful Growth Hacking

It doesn't take you long in the startup community to find yourself in a conversation about it. That's right, growth hacking.

"What are you testing to lower your CAC (customer acquisition cost)?"

"What have you found that's worked for you to grow your ARR month over month (annual reoccurring revenue)?"

"Oh you've got to try this thing we just did that got us a ton of new app downloads!"

But there's one thing you need to make sure you have before you start working on any type of growth for your startup. Before you scaffold up a bunch of growth hacking tactics, you need the foundation for them to stand on.

And that is a clear and compelling story.

Without a clear and compelling story, odds are very good that any efforts to grow your startup will not succeed. The world gets noisier everyday and there is only so much attention that can be won by startups that already face an uphill battle when it comes to awareness and credibility.

Join us for this workshop as Patrick Hodgdon, Minnesota native and co-founder of Story Sprints, will walk you through an exercise to tell your story in a powerful way: by only using 9 words.

Speakers

Patrick Hodgdon

Co-Founder & Chief Storytellers, Story Sprints

Co-founder, Story Sprints

Wednesday October 11, 2017 9:15am - 10:45am CDT
WeWork

Marketing & Advertising Track

9:00am CDT

Free Co-Working at WeWork

Thursday October 12, 2017 9:00am - 5:00pm CDT
WeWork

Free Coworking Space

10:00am CDT

Technical Architecture: Building and Scaling

Whether you are looking to start coding an application, building onto it, or scaling, technology is always changing. What works best for building something quick? What work best for scaling?. What languages work best for rapid prototyping, and what does scalable infrastructure look like these days? What technology do you use at different stages of building a company (10 users, 100 users, 10,000 users)? Open Source or proprietary? Build on IAAS or PAAS?

Join us for a panel of folks who have built applications on a range of technologies at different stages of growth.

Moderators

Nick Roseth

Nick Roseth is Chief Operations Officer of SWAT Solutions, a solutions group focused on helping clients evolve their technology and quality ecosystems. Nick works best at the intersections of creative, technology, and business. As an evangelist for Minnesota, Nick is passionate... Read More →

Speakers

Eric Brandes

TrackJS

He is an enterprise software consultant working on large scale web applications and specializing in Elasticsearch, advanced front end development, and data analysis. Eric is also co-founder of TrackJS, a JavaScript error monitoring service (http://trackjs.com). TrackJS monitors... Read More →

Bridget Kromhout

Microsoft

Technologist, podcaster, conference speaker, devopsdays organizer, Principal Cloud Developer Advocate at Microsoft. A frequent speaker at tech conferences, Bridget organizes the local DevOps Meetup, serves on the program committee for Velocity, and acts as a global core organizer... Read More →

Eric Martell

Managing Director, gener8tor Minnesota

Eric manages gener8tor in the Twin Cities. gener8tor is a nationally ranked accelerator, with 49 investments to date.Before gener8tor, Eric co-founded EatStreet, a startup that powers the online ordering for 15,000 restaurants nationwide and feeds millions of hungry people. Early... Read More →

Dan Olfelt

Wheniwork

Dan is Cofounder and Chief Architect at Wheniwork. Specialties and favorite tools include HTML, CSS, Sass, JS, PHP, SQL, Go, Unix, Nginx, Node.js, Mithril.JS, React.js, and Equip PHP. Dan is responsible for building and iterating on the platform that more than 300,000 employees... Read More →

Thursday October 12, 2017 10:00am - 12:00pm CDT
WeWork

Technology Track

12:00pm CDT

Growth is for Losers: Testing Our Way to Big Wins at When I Work

All businesses are unique, but everyone faces similar growth challenges. The difference between those who succeed and those who fail is how they approach those challenges.

Join us for this lunch and learn to:

Learn how When I Work’s Growth Team uncovers big wins
See real-world examples from When I Work
Discuss how you and your team can get started

Joe Stanton is the Director of Growth @ When I Work. Prior to When I Work he co-founded Elevate and held product leadership roles at Questar and OptumHealth.

Thursday October 12, 2017 12:00pm - 1:00pm CDT
WeWork

Community Event

1:00pm CDT

Open Office Hours with Techstars (Boulder) Managing Director Natty Zola

Come meet Techstars Boulder Managing Director Natty Zola to get help with challenges facing your startup and/or to learn more about Techstars. Natty has invested in 34 companies in the past three years and as a former founder, turned investor, he can share some thoughts and advice to help you on your entrepreneurial journey.

Speakers

Natty Zola

Natty Zola is a Managing Director for Techstars Boulder. Previously Natty was Head of Consumer Products for MapQuest, where he helped MapQuest return to profitability and year-over-year growth for the first time since 2007. Before MapQuest, he was a founder of Everlater.com, a travel... Read More →

Thursday October 12, 2017 1:00pm - 3:45pm CDT
WeWork

Community Event

6:00pm CDT

Entrepreneurship 101

Entrepreneurship 101 is an event designed to prepare participants for the weekend ahead. The 2 hour event will provide a brief yet robust introduction to the entrepreneurial process. Topics covered will including: brainstorming, marketing, business model development, and more. The event will begin with Isabel and Caroline Bercaw, local teen entrepreneurs, followed by an activity in which groups of participants will quickly develop the backbone of a simulated company.

5:45 PM - 6:00 PM | CHECK-IN

6:00 PM - 6:10 PM | INTRODUCTION

6:10 PM - 6:20 PM | PICK AND PITCH

6:20 PM- 6:50 PM | BMC +VPC SESSIONS

6:50 PM - 7:25 PM | DINNER + WORKTME

7:25 PM - 7:55 PM | PITCH

7:55 - 8:00PM | CLOSING

Thursday October 12, 2017 6:00pm - 8:00pm CDT
WeWork

Youth and Student Track

9:00am CDT

Free Co-Working at WeWork

Friday October 13, 2017 9:00am - 5:00pm CDT
WeWork

Free Coworking Space

9:30am CDT

End The Stigma: Mental Healthiness for Startup/Tech Culture

No one ever talks about it: the stress involved in starting/running a company or working in the tech industry. In this event, 3-4 founders will share their personal struggles with mental health. We will share tools & strategies to overcome specific mental health issues (depression, ocd, anxiety, bfrbs & more). We will also answer audience questions. The goal is to break down the stigma & help others on their journey to better manage mental health. Ticket pricing (TBD) will be donated to BFRB.org.

Friday October 13, 2017 9:30am - 11:30am CDT
WeWork

Healthcare Track

Twin Cities Startup Week 2017

9:00am CDT

9:00am CDT

4:00pm CDT

Pat Dillon

Jeffrey C. Robbins

David Russick

Sara Russick

Chris Styring

8:00am CDT

Jennifer Zick

Clay Collins

Carson Kipfer

Chip Pearson

Phil Soran

Peter Zaballos

9:00am CDT

9:15am CDT

Patrick Hodgdon

9:00am CDT

10:00am CDT

Nick Roseth

Eric Brandes

Bridget Kromhout

Eric Martell

Dan Olfelt

12:00pm CDT

1:00pm CDT

Natty Zola

6:00pm CDT

9:00am CDT

9:30am CDT

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