ITEN News

June 24 - Well over 250 people attended the June 23 Start Up Connection.   The large crowd was made up of start-up technology entrepreneurs, laid-off corporate executives looking for their next assignment, angel investors looking for interesting early-stage deals, and representatives of organizations that support the St. Louis start-up community.   Nasser Arshadi, Vice-Provost of Research at UMSL welcomed everyone to the state-of-the-art incubation facility run by UMSL, called IT Enterprises, which is located strategically between the main campus and the airport.

A highlight of the afternoon was a panel discussion moderated by Dave Nicklaus, business editor of the Post-Dispatch.   Panel members included Vicki Gonzalez, CEO of the Nidus Center; Jean Roberson, CFO of Appistry; Eddie Davis, President of the Center for the Advancement of African-American Business (CAAAB) and National Minority Business Champion of the Year; Bob Calcatera, Director of the Start Up Midwest Bio Seed Fund, and Thomas Braun, IT Systems Architect.  Dave Nicklaus' article about the event, including his reflections on the current state of our start-up community are at: http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/business/columnists.nsf/davidnicklaus/story/1FF8AFB76321D2D0862575E200060F3A?OpenDocument .

Chris O'Leary, well-know author of "Elevator Pitch Essentials" let a workshop and competition on elevator pitch creation and delivery.   The winners received cash prizes totaling $1000.  The winners were Jay Berendzen, Tom Niermann, and Phil Langhorst.

Other events included an Innovation Cafe, a Talent Outreach and lots of networking.

Elia Powers, of The St. Louis Beacon was at the event, and posted a very good blog about our event, including a photo of Chris O'Leary kicking off the elevator pitch workshop: http://www.stlbeacon.org/the_feed/talking_jobs_trading_business_cards_making_pitches

Besides ITEN, important sponsors of the event included the Nidus Center for Scientific Research, RCGA's St. Louis Works organization, the IT Coalition and Innovate St. Louis.

June 23 - The St. Louis IT Entrepreneur Network (ITEN) today announced the public launch of its innovative website, www.itenstl.org .  The new website enables interaction between ITEN’s start-up information technology ventures and its highly skilled team of volunteer mentors, many of whom are or have been successful start-up entrepreneurs themselves.   The website also enables connections for companies with potential investors and recommended service providers.   Those interested in the start-up community can connect through news, events, blogs and discussions on the site. 

ITEN sponsors numerous networking events for early-stage entrepreneurs, provides expert mentoring, mock angel investor sessions to help companies prepare their investor presentations, and connections with larger corporations for early adoption of innovative technologies and services.   The new website is the gateway for all of ITEN’s programs, and enables the organization to expand and enhance its service offerings.

ITEN is the premier regional resource for innovative information technology start-up ventures, connecting all of the support resources necessary for the emergence of a thriving start-up community.   ITEN is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization, an operating entity of Innovate St. Louis (www.innovatestl.org) and the St. Louis IT Coalition (www.itcoalition.org) .

June 12 - Dave Nicklaus, Business editor for the Post-Dispatch wrote a very telling article in this morning's paper, exploring the story of a successful entrepreneur who had to go elsewhere to find that success.   Dave has agreed to follow-up on some of the themes of the article by moderating the panel discussion at the upcoming StartUpConnnection on June 23rd.  ITEN is a primary sponsor of the event, to be held at IT Enterprises.   Come listen to Dave and the other panelists explore the strengths and challenges tech entrepreneurs face in our community.   Follow the link and register!   See you on the 23rd.

The May meeting of the ITEN Mongel Group included a visitor from Palo Alto, California, as Gamiel Gran from Sierra Ventures was our invited guest.  Sierra Ventures invests in information technology and clean technology companies, from concept stage through later stages.

Four companies did their investor pitches to the mock angel (Mongel) group and benefitted from questions and suggestions from Sierra as well as from the Mongels.

There was a lunch preceding the Mongel meeting where Gamiel was able to meet and discuss prospects for local investing with St. Louis Angel and VC investors.

Sierra Ventures has expressed interest in establishing a standing relationship with ITEN, including introductions to any start-up companies that complete the ITEN Mongel Training program.