It seems like the same thing happens each summer. I notice that my calendar empties out with the conclusion of school and kids’ activities around the first week of June. My optimism builds as it looks like I have nearly three months of productivity ahead of me. Then, in what seems like just a few minutes, the summer is nearly over. The kids are already registered for school and dance class, and I only have a couple weeks left until I’m a twice-daily shuttle driver. Fall trips are booked and itineraries are coming together for both Denver Startup Week in September and Franklin County Cider Days at the beginning of November.
Summer in the Iowa City entrepreneurial ecosystem is a whirlwind of ideas, mentoring, and meeting new people. Student entrepreneurs took their ideas through the JPEC Student Accelerator, and many came out of the program with vastly different projects than they had at the beginning of the summer. International entrepreneurs from sub-Saharan Africa and Haiti visited the area to learn the basics of lean startup methodology and to make connections with businesses and entrepreneurs who might be able to help grow their companies when they return home. Over 25 entrepreneurs spent an entire weekend at MERGE working on new business ideas during Startup Weekend Iowa City. I’m glad I had the opportunity to interact with all of these groups this summer. It does make the season move rather quickly, though.
Startup Weekend Iowa City 2019 was bigger than 2018 in just about every way. We had several more participants, more teams, more coaches, and more food eaten during this weekend’s event than we did last year. It wasn’t a huge jump, but it’s steady progress in bringing back Startup Weekend Iowa City as a fun yearly event that brings in participants from across the state (and this year, from across the globe, thanks to the participation of four Mandela Washington Fellows.) An interesting thing about this year that I don’t remember happening last time is that most of the teams pivoted significantly between the idea storm on Friday evening and the final judged pitches on Sunday afternoon. It was a lot of fun, as an organizer, to see the ideas transform into startups, and to see the startups take shape all the way up until the judged presentations.
We’ve already chosen July 17-19, 2020, as the dates for next year’s Startup Weekend Iowa City. The event will take place at MERGE for the third year in a row, and the format really won’t change for 2020. The nice thing about running something like this for multiple years is that much of the work can be reduced to checklists that need to be finished by certain dates. Tickets won’t go on sale until April next year, so I don’t need to do much until at least January, when I start reaching out to sponsors for funding and to Techstars for the ticketing and invoicing infrastructure. Ian is on board to work with food vendors again for 2020, but we can’t do this alone. I’ll be reaching out to people interested in helping with next year’s event sometime in the fall.
I did get a chance to meet most of the visiting and student entrepreneurs this summer, but I wish I’d been able to have more contact with them. The JPEC Student Accelerator curriculum was substantially retooled this year, and students weren’t required to reach out to mentors outside the university like they were in 2018. As someone looking from the outside, I feel like this led to what I’ve coined “ivory tower syndrome.” The faculty are a fantastic resource, but have their own point of view being inside a university setting. Much of what works on paper in that setting does not work outside of the “ivory tower.” Most of the businesses, I believe, would do fine outside the university. However, there were a handful of teams that really seemed to struggle during the program who would have gained a great deal of benefit talking to outside mentors. Some of these teams were struggling with basic business metrics and value propositions weeks after they should have mastered the concepts. Outside mentors would have given these teams a fresh perspective on these topics, and I feel as though it helped last year’s cohort to run through this information with non-faculty.
There were also a sense of “forcing” students to attend events like Open Coffee and 1 Million Cups this summer, similar to a couple of years ago when students were required to attend two 1MCs each semester. As the summer progressed, the cohort seemed less interested in interacting with our regular community attendees, and I noticed some of the regulars quit attending each week. I was told that the students were “incredibly stressed” about their work, and that might be the cause of the vibe in the room. If this were the case, I certainly didn’t see a lot of them leave immediately at 10 am or earlier, after 1MC concluded each week. Perhaps time management needs to be part of the curriculum next year.
I’m hoping that key players in the local entrepreneurial ecosystem are brought into the discussion for next year’s accelerator. Many of the outside mentors that I’ve talked with felt underutilized this summer. When mentors don’t feel utilized, they’re more likely not to participate in future programs, which is a detriment to the student entrepreneurs. In an ideal world, outside mentors not only would be utilized beyond the weekly pitch sessions, but would be made an integral part of the accelerator curriculum. Key metrics were a struggle both this year and last year – I spent a significant number of meetings last year re-teaching concepts like market size/segments, customer acquisition costs, and sales funnels. Perhaps bringing in outside mentors to teach these things during the program would reduce or eliminate this confusion in the future. Learn more heavily on the practical, and less on the academic.
Only once was I able to interact with the Mandela Washington Fellows from sub-Saharan Africa and the group of Haitian entrepreneurs who visited Iowa City this summer. The Haitian program was new, to my knowledge. I had more opportunity to interact with the African entrepreneurs last year, and felt like I made some great connections with them. Luckily, some of the folks from both groups have reached out after we met during 1MC Iowa City, with one of the Haitian entrepreneurs interested in starting a weekly meeting like 1 Million Cups back at home. I had a chance to talk with him a couple of weeks ago online, and he had all sorts of questions about our entrepreneurial programs in Iowa City. I asked him to keep in touch and let me know if there’s more I can do to help in the future.
It would have been fantastic to help with either or both of those international programs. I suppose that I’ll personally reach out next spring to see how I can help next year’s groups. I’m glad that they were all able to experience Iowa City Open Coffee and 1 Million Cups Iowa City, to see first-hand how we’re bringing different segments of the entrepreneurial community together. I’m also pleased that several Mandela Washington Fellows spent the entirety of the weekend working on a project during Startup Weekend Iowa City. It’s fun to show off what we’re doing here, and hopefully that inspires our guests to start awesome community building projects once they return to their home countries.
So, what’s next? New freelance clients are onboarding, the kids are getting back in their normal routines, the wife is settling into her new job closer to home, and I’m planning out the next few months of entrepreneurial and cider-related trips. I’ve registered for both Denver Startup Week and the 1 Million Cups Organizer Summit in Kansas City, both in September. At the end of October, I’ll be flying to New England for Franklin County Cider Days. I’ll be visiting several cider makers during the week, from eastern upstate New York, through Vermont, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts. I’m looking forward to meeting new people and seeing some familiar faces at all three events. Before I know it, the holidays will be here. It always goes so quickly!
If you’re reading this and planning to attend Denver Startup Week or 1MCOS, let me know! I’ve already convinced one Iowan to attend Denver Startup Week with me – can we put together an entire contingent of Iowans? It’s a worthwhile experience for anyone in the field of entrepreneurship, and I’ve already started registering for some interesting breakout sessions during the week. In next month’s post, I’ll talk more about what I hope to learn during the week, and give you some links of sessions that I’ll be attending.
Until then, enjoy what’s left of the summer. It’s been gorgeous outside the past couple of weeks – hot, but not oppressively humid. Let’s hope it stays that way, at least for a little while longer.