Last time I wrote, I was waist-deep in preparing for the Undergraduate Incubator Summer Track, my 11-week experiment in accelerating 16 student businesses from super-early stage to a point where they are beta testing a product or generating revenue. We have four stages in the program – idea, startup, traction, and growth – and the group mostly fit into the idea and startup stages on the first day of the program in mid-May, with a couple in traction stage, where they were generating a bit of revenue already. In just a few short weeks, I have multiple businesses generating solid amounts of revenue and several others working on prototypes to test before the end of the program in July.
This group has already exceeded my expectations for the summer, and we’re only half done with the program. Everyone shows up eager to learn, to improve, and to grind away at their businesses. Most of the group is taking advantage of the provided office space, with one business running an entire rug factory out of the old kitchen. I have a couple of academic year students who are also working alongside the summer students at the BELL – great to see the two groups starting to merge, as many in the summer program will continue on into the academic year program in the fall.
Here’s what everyone is working on this summer:
- Retractable ski pole for snowboarders
- Sleep monitoring watch and active alarm system designed to wake the user at the optimal time
- Automated scheduling for auto mechanic shops
- Custom decorative hand-tufted rugs
- Health and wellness brand for women
- Library subscription service for travelers
- App and Web site for amateur and professional cooks to share recipes and insights
- Service to abridge videos created by video game streamers
- Customized personal training app for less active adults
- Sports handicapping information service
- Marketplace for secondhand student football and basketball tickets
- Newsletter and community to help retail market investors improve their trading skills
- Shotgun suppressors for hunters
- Clothing brand that promotes mental health awareness among college students
If you know anyone who could help my students, please let me know.
I say five weeks of progress, but they really have only been working for the better part of four weeks – we were in the classroom all during week 1, so the students weren’t out performing customer discovery. Week 4 was EntreFEST, so they weren’t in the office working, but were out making new contacts in the community. This past week, half of my group were attending the Okoboji Entrepreneurial Institute, so I don’t know what kind of progress they made. In this next six weeks, everyone will be back in the office and we should be able to make a ton of progress.
This summer has felt like a blur because of all of the interruptions – we’ve really only had one normal week without an event or a holiday, and during that week, I was dealing with year-end things with my kids. Memorial Day weekend was completely eaten up by my daughters’ dance recitals – they were in separate shows this year, and each show ran FOUR HOURS. There’s absolutely no reason a stage show ever needs to run that long, especially one that involves small children. By the end of the first show, the auditorium was nearly half empty.
For years, I’ve been saying that the shows should be broken up by age. Preschoolers through first grade should have a show during the day. Second through eighth grade could do something late afternoon. Then, the high school students should have their show in the evening. The show ran FOUR HOURS because the same group of students were out every third or fourth dance – at least half of this could have been cut, or – crazy idea – give them their own show.
My rising sixth grader has had about enough with dance. She hasn’t been that into it since the pandemic, but I wanted her to stick with it a bit longer, since she has some friends who take part in her classes. Since then, she’s made a bunch of friends at other summer camps, and there aren’t as many of her friends left in the dance classes. My rising second grader is still into it, mostly because a number of kids from her school are in her dance classes. I’d be happy to spend less time over there – one of the best things about the pandemic was not having to deal with dance parents. That, and being able to fast forward through the parts of the video dance recital not containing my children.
The kids finished school for the year just in time for EntreFEST – they had their last day of school the Tuesday of that week, and the entrepreneurial festivities kicked off Wednesday evening. I had the opportunity to present twice at EntreFEST this year. On Thursday, I was part of a panel discussing entrepreneurship among high school students through the Design Dash program I helped to launch and facilitated four times. We got some great questions from the audience, and I had some great discussions with audience members before and after the panel.
I then presented my entrepreneurial journey in a 45-minute solo talk on Friday afternoon, from my beginnings as a freelancer all the way through my trip to Uganda last summer and this past year running the undergraduate incubator program at The University of Iowa. It was fun talking about the steps in building community through the things that I’ve learned in nearly a decade of doing this stuff – this blog has run most of the length of my journey, but there was a year or so before I started this thing where I was doing a lot of learning and networking. I wish the audience had been a bit larger for both the panel on Thursday and the solo talk on Friday, but there way too many things to choose from during each session.
The event this year felt a lot different than it had in previous years – keeping track of 19 young entrepreneurs, many of whom had never attended an event like this, presenting multiple times during the event, helping a number of Venture School students from the past two cohorts find their way through the conference, and getting ready for Startup Weekend Iowa City really changed the experience for me this year. It wasn’t necessarily a good change or a bad change, just a different experience. Some of my coaching staff helped herd the cats during the event, but I’m going to come up with different ways to keep eyes on the students while still allowing me to get more out of the conference.
It seemed like there were fewer people in attendance this year than there were last year. It might have felt that way because there were so many different things going on all at once. My students mentioned that this was a bit overwhelming for them and it was difficult to pick something to attend. I know there were some track options, like the EdTech track that I followed for much of the conference, since I wanted to see a number of friends and colleagues in the space present during the two days. Some curation for new attendees might be in order for future events, and is something I’ll be doing for my students in future years.
Speaking of future years, I have a sinking feeling that the organizers are going to move EntreFEST back to Cedar Rapids next year, which would be incredibly unfortunate. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – the NewBo neighborhood is not set up for events like EntreFEST. There are no hotels in that neighborhood and a limited number of good venues. Keynotes have to be done on the other side of a 5-lane road of death, because there isn’t an auditorium large enough in that section of town to hold everyone. Insisting on holding a conference in an inferior location just because NewBoCo has an obvious disdain for Iowa City is shortsighted and silly.
We certainly tried to work with them on multiple fronts. Startup Weekend Iowa City took place right after EntreFEST wrapped up, with the hopes that some attendees might stick around Iowa City for a couple more days and build something awesome. While we promoted EntreFEST through the SWIC social media channels, they didn’t live up to their end of the bargain – no mentions of our event as an add-on and the printed material I sent north was absent from the bags handed out to attendees. We didn’t ask for money or time from NewBoCo, so it’s unfortunate (but fully expected) that they would act this way, since it wasn’t something they could swoop in and control.
We had 16 amazing attendees this year at Startup Weekend Iowa City, putting together five teams from eight pitched ideas. All five ideas could do quite well in Venture School, and I’m hoping that at least a couple of them decide to keep pursuing their ideas. Our first place winner actually formed from two nearly identical ideas pitched by an attendee who was in town from Des Moines and the other who traveled all the way from the Los Angeles area and hadn’t decided to attend until the Wednesday before the event! The attendee from Des Moines is actually interested in hosting a Startup Weekend event there this fall – I’m working with her and another attendee from the past two Startup Weekend Iowa City events to make that a reality utilizing the infrastructure I’ve built with EntrePartners. It’s the first test I’ll have helping an event outside of my direct control, as I’ll set up the ticketing system and facilitate the event, but it’s up to them to get sponsors for prizes and money to pay for the essentials during the event.
The five teams from Startup Weekend Iowa City 2023 and their pitches:
I was absolutely exhausted by the end of Startup Weekend Iowa City – five full days of entrepreneurial events, from Iowa City Open Coffee at 8 am Wednesday morning followed by 1MC Iowa City at 9 am, teaching class from 10:30-12:30 Wednesday, the entirety of EntreFEST Wednesday evening through Friday afternoon, and Startup Weekend Iowa City from 5 pm Friday through about 5 pm Sunday. However exhausting it was, the period after hasn’t slowed down much. My students are preparing for our final demo day on July 28, from 9 am to noon at MERGE. The top 8 teams from the summer will give 5-minute investor pitches, while the bottom 8 teams will give short elevator pitches. Both groups will be judged and will win prize money from a total pot of $10,000. Once I announced the specifics of the final demo day event, I saw my students really switch things into overdrive – prototypes are starting to appear during our Friday retrospectives, and a few students are working late when I leave the BELL weekdays at 4 pm. I love to see it!
While my students are busy hustling toward the end of their program, the Mandela Washington Fellows have arrived in Iowa City. I’ve had a chance to talk with about half of the cohort, and a number of them are interested in what we’re doing in the Undergraduate Incubator Programs. I’m working out a time with the staff involved in that program to set up time for a tour of the BELL and Q&A, as I’ve done with other groups visiting campus from other cities and countries. I really like showing off the things that my students are doing, and as I presented at EntreFEST, I believe that entrepreneurial ecosystems can develop anywhere given the correct recipe. I’ve read through the bios of this year’s fellows, and many of them have already done amazing things back in their home countries. Hopefully, I can give them that little bit of extra help to make whatever they are building at home into a reality.
Six of my students are also preparing for a big pitch competition in Chicago in just a couple weeks’ time. The University of Iowa won last year’s Pitch Madness competition, which brings together a number of undergraduate programs from across the Midwest. I think I’ve picked out our four best businesses from the group this summer – we shall see what the judges think in a couple of weeks. This is only the second pitch competition that I’ve attended with my students – this trip will be a bit warmer than March in Winnipeg. All four of the businesses will have prototypes in their booths, which was one of the requirements for me to pick the business to compete in this event. Wish us luck!
By the time I have a chance to write again, the fall semester will probably be in full swing. I’m looking forward to taking two weeks away from the computer starting July 31 – I haven’t really had a proper break from working or traveling since June 2021, when post-pandemic events began. The plan is to unplug completely for two weeks. The reality is that I’ll probably need to check things a couple of times to make sure everything continues running smoothly in my absence. I’ve already put my time off on our departmental calendar at the university, and I’m on a quest to finish as much work as possible before my students’ final demo day.
What will I do during my two weeks unplugged? The garage and the yard are in dire need of attention after two years of relative neglect. My home office is an absolute mess, but it’s not nearly as bad as the garage and the yard. Goal number one is to clean out the garage – junk to the dump, recycling to the appropriate place, and things we don’t need can be donated. What’s left can then be reorganized so that I can start transforming that building into something usable more than a couple of months out of the year – insulation and a heater plus some rewiring of lights could make all the difference.
I’ve also never had a real chance to landscape around the house. I don’t like that the grass grows right up to the house – it would be nice to have a buffer strip of plants and flowers between the house and the grass. By August, it will be too late to plant anything, but I’d like to be set up well for next spring. Also, our downspouts are all dented and bent and the house needs to be repainted – probably won’t get to the painting this year, but I certainly can replace the downspouts. It will be just me and a bunch of yard tools for a few days, and that sounds like paradise.
The last two years of nearly non-stop activity are something I wouldn’t change – at this point last year, I was about to board a series of planes to travel over to Uganda for a month, and this point two years ago, I was preparing for our first EdTech-themed Startup Weekend Iowa City. However, this two week break coming up is very much overdue. Even if I don’t get everything done around the property that I want to do, unplugging from email and social media for that period is the real reward. I would like to start making the two-week unplug a yearly occurrence, where I’m completely unreachable for the first two weeks of August. I’m dipping my toe into it this year, because I’ll still check email for no more than 15 minutes each evening, but my phone will be on “do not disturb” the entire time.
Until then, there’s a lot to do. Looking at the Scrum Wall of Doom in my office at the BELL, my team and I have accomplished so much this summer, but it’s only about half of the items that I placed in the to-do pile in mid-May. There are a handful of things that may not be accomplished until fall semester, and that’s fine. Nearly everything I need to do for fall semester is finished or waiting on someone else to finish, and that’s significantly better than where I was a year ago. I hope the rest of your summer is productive and that you’re able to take some time off before things ramp up again in the fall. Grab a cold beverage and make something happen.