The Future is Now, Old Man

Reading Time: 7 minutes

And just like that, summer vacation is upon us. The end of the school year was a bit of a blur around my house. Between the separate dance recitals for both of my daughters, my older kid finishing out Kindergarten, and the mad dash to meet work deadlines, things have been pretty hectic around here. This is actually the first chance I’ve had to sit down and collect my thoughts about all of the events I’ve attended or run here in eastern Iowa over the last few weeks. I’ll go into greater detail in the following paragraphs, but to summarize: I had a great time at EntreFEST this year, 1 Million Cups Iowa City and Iowa City Open Coffee are growing by leaps and bounds, Startup Weekend Iowa City has sold enough tickets far enough out to be completely viable, and Cider Finder is finally becoming a reality.

Let’s start with EntreFEST. I was unsure how things were going to work with the event moving to Cedar Rapids – were events going to take place in the NewBo neighborhood, or closer to downtown? The density and the walkability between the two areas just isn’t there yet. It’s unfortunate that there isn’t a larger venue available closer to NewBo, as both keynote addresses were at the Paramount Theater. I ended up skipping the first keynote, since I was scheduled at the pitch competition right at the end of the morning keynote, and I didn’t feel like running in dress shoes over a mile between the Paramount and the Geonetric building. So, to avoid arriving sweaty and out of breath, I drank some coffee at the NewBo City Market and prepared myself for pitching Cider Finder.

I felt as though my pitch went well, and that I was prepared for all of the questions the judges asked me. The judges didn’t provide any sort of feedback sheets after the first round was over – this has been an ongoing complaint I’ve had of a lot of different pitch competitions, and I’m not sure why they aren’t able or willing to provide this. I didn’t make it into the final round, and I didn’t expect to make it, based on how far some of the other companies who pitched were in relation to Cider Finder. It always baffles me when companies already generating revenue participate in competitions where the top prize is as small as $1500. Seems like a massive waste of time for those companies (and might be why these pitch competitions have such a difficult time finding participants…)

The keynote by Scott Belsky was the high point of the first day of EntreFEST. His discussion of the “messy middle” of the entrepreneurial process was something that I’d not heard from any other presenter previously. It’s something that really isn’t discussed – most of the time, we’re focused on getting ideas off the ground, or what you’re supposed to do when you need to talk with investors. However, most of us building companies from the ground up already have gotten off of the ground, but we’re nowhere near the point of talking to investors. Most of us are in the “messy middle” right now, and it’s more difficult than we lead the outside world to believe. We’re really good at hiding the mess.

After the keynote, the fun began. The party moved from one location to another, starting downtown and making its way south. It had been a long day, but I was able to last until about 11 pm, as things seemed to be winding down. I checked out the mural that was being painted on the side of the Map Room, went across the street and ran into a ton of friends at the Backpocket pub, and finished the evening at the art show in the Yoimono space. Social events like this produce the most value for me at conferences like EntreFEST, and are truly the highlights of events like this.

Now that I’ve been in the entrepreneurial ecosystem for a few years, I’m finding that most of the breakout sessions at large entrepreneurial gatherings cover the same material year in and year out – great for people just coming online, but not something I need to hear year after year. Here’s something I propose for future startup events: a beginner track and an advanced track. I think that the basics are vital to bringing people into the entrepreneurial ecosystem, and should always be a mainstay at large events. Items for a potential beginner’s track could include automation tools for marketing, ways to fundraise beyond traditional investors, and the pros and cons of social media for your business. To contrast, sessions on the advanced track could take a deeper dive in certain industries or could look at entrepreneurship through a different lens. I enjoyed the sessions on the future of technologies and the future of marketing and branding at EntreFEST – I would classify these as part of an advanced track. I would also include sessions on how to properly staff a growing startup or the talk I proposed for Denver Startup Week on how to utilize freelancers as part of the advanced track, along with something like the “breakfast with a VC” session that occurred last year when Paul Singh attended EntreFEST in Iowa City. Networking and advanced sessions will bring seasoned professionals back to events one year after another.

I think that just about everyone partied a bit too hard on Thursday evening, because Friday seemed significantly more subdued. It may have been the heat though – Friday was much warmer than Thursday, and we spent more time outside. I’m hoping that at some point in the future, they decide to put some shade around the outdoor pavilion at NewBo City Market. They scheduled a keynote at the lunch hour there on Friday, and it was pretty hot out with full sunshine. Pale characters such as myself aren’t designed for that kind of weather. I was happy that the next session was indoors, with full air conditioning.

All in all, EntreFEST was a good event. I had fun, and I made a lot of great connections, as I do at all of these kinds of events. If I can get another super duper early bird ticket for 2019, I’ll be there again, so long as it doesn’t conflict with any other travel I need to do next year. I’m starting to plan my calendar for next year already – seems crazy, I know. However, it’s looking like I’m going to have to do a decent amount of travel to promote Cider Finder to cideries and cider enthusiasts. I’ve already removed some travel and some events this year as opposed to last year in order to build and grow what I’ve started. Startup Weekend Iowa City is my only Startup Weekend this year (kinda have to be there, since I’m running the thing.) Young Entrepreneur Convention, EntreFEST, and Denver Startup Week are my only big startup conferences this year, and one of them may have to go next year if I’m going to attend the big cider get-togethers early next year. I’m not traveling at all this summer, partially due to SWIC, but also because I want to get an early version of Cider Finder shipped before I go to Denver at the end of September.

As it stands right now, my top events to attend in 2019 are CiderCon in Chicago (sometime in February), Cider Week GR and GLINTCAP in Grand Rapids, Michigan (sometime in May), SWIC2019 (sometime in July), and Denver Startup Week (end of September.) If I can fit the Young Entrepreneur Conference and EntreFEST in, I’d be very happy. However, there is only so much time each year that I can devote to travel and conferences, and the additional cider-related events take priority. Priorities can change if asked to speak at an event, though…

1 Million Cups Iowa City is growing steadily, as is Iowa City Open Coffee. It’s still difficult to tell what the “usual” attendance is going to be for both of those events – for instance, we had a packed house this week, with nearly two dozen people showing up for Iowa City Open Coffee before the main show started at 9 am. The week before, we had 5 people show up for coffee before 1 Million Cups. The week before that, we had about a dozen people. I’m hoping that the community really starts taking advantage of the program and start attending Open Coffee and 1 Million Cups on a more regular basis. I enjoy facilitating Open Coffee, and I’ve been lucky enough to run 1 Million Cups a couple of times over the past month. I was also able to pitch Cider Finder in front of the group a couple of weeks ago, and got some incredibly useful feedback. I haven’t decided whether or not I’m going to take the Cider Finder pitch on tour the way I took BondingBox, but if I do, it will be after we release the first functional version of the app.

Startup Weekend Iowa City is now less than 6 weeks away, and the excitement is definitely building. We have sold enough tickets for the event to be viable, so the committee is moving full steam ahead with the rest of the preparations. We’re reaching out to potential sponsors, mentors, judges, and participants in an effort to make the weekend a major success. If you or your business is interested in sponsoring SWIC, just let me know. We’d love to have you on board. It’s looking more and more like we’re going to have the only Startup Weekend in Iowa this year, so if you have a crazy idea you’d like to try out, this might be your only chance in Iowa until 2019!

If all of that wasn’t enough, I’m helping mentor the students going through the JPEC Summer Accelerator again this year. I’ve interacted with over half of the teams so far, either watching their pitches or through one-on-one mentoring. I’ve heard some great ideas so far, and I really think that a number of teams really could do well after the program, so long as they follow the advice of their instructors and the mentoring team. Some of the teams could use a bit more polishing than others, and I’m hoping that I can help, at least a little bit.

The next couple of months are going to be an absolute blur. There’s still a ton of work to do to make sure SWIC goes off without too many glitches. Cider Finder is still on track to have an early alpha version done before summer changes to fall. The Freelance Media Podcast is still being developed, with a launch planned before the end of September. I’ll be carving pumpkins with the kids before I know it. We’ll probably have snow by then, the way the weather has been this year.

I make no promises about posting again before Startup Weekend Iowa City. You can look forward to a full recap of the event in mid-July. Until then, get outside and do something fun!