Pieces have really started to fall into place over the last couple of years, and 2024 should be a continuation of that theme, barring some international calamity timed perfectly for an election year. There’s a lot to anticipate in the coming months, including a decent amount of travel on my part. I’m finally at a point where I can begin to focus on Cider Finder a lot more than I have over the last couple of years — the app is nearly ready for a public beta and my schedule works out so that I can attend more cider events in the coming year. The incubator still has a lot of room for growth in the coming year as well — can I boost enrollment to 75 students by the end of next year? What other interesting startup community-building activities will land in my inbox?
I’m starting off the year with a 10-day trip to the Pacific Northwest for CiderCon, a couple of weeks earlier than usual. The convention itself will be in Portland, Oregon, from January 16-19, but I’m flying out there on January 11 and spending a couple of days outside of the city touring cider makers and soaking in some scenery before returning to Portland on the evening of January 14 in order to catch a tour bus heading to Seattle for an overnight trip and tours of six Seattle-area cider makers on the morning of the 15th. I’ll return to Portland the evening of January 16, get some rest during the day on the 17th before the cider share, and then hit the convention hard the 18th and 19th. On the 20th, I’m taking part in a special Cider Summit event with tastings and food pairings before returning to eastern Iowa on the afternoon of the 21st. In total, I’ll be visit well over a dozen cideries in a part of the country I’ve never visited before.
I booked a number of extra days for the trip because you never know what’s going to happen — I wish I’d booked a couple of extra days when CiderCon was in Oakland, California, in 2020, right before the pandemic started. There were a number of things I didn’t get to do because there just weren’t enough days on the ground out there. When CiderCon was in Richmond, Virginia, in 2022, I booked a little extra time to sightsee around the city and visit a couple of extra cider makers — totally worth it. Also, with the unpredictability of winter weather in the Midwest, traveling there a bit earlier leaves a bit more cushion in case there is chaos at O’Hare due to snow and ice. By the time the convention and the Cider Summit event are over, I will definitely be ready to return home. 10 days of “peopleing” is enough.
The Seattle tour and the cider and food pairing event on the 20th are the two things I’m really anticipating about the trip. I’ve done CiderCon tours in past years, but I’ve never done any of the overnight tours that have been offered — the logistics were just too complicated. I was determined to make it work this time — what better opportunity to knock two states off the list and get a chance to visit half a dozen cideries in one of the farthest corners of the country? The tour is also going to be a great opportunity to spend time with a handful of cider makers and enthusiasts, and hopefully give the app a try in a real-life situation. It doesn’t sound like we’re going to have a ton of down time during the two days and a night that we’re in Seattle, but if you have any suggestions on things to see or do while I’m there, let me know.
On the final Saturday, the Cider Summit tasting event pairing different ciders and foods in a setting with only a few handfuls of people should be amazing. I’ve registered for the second session in the late afternoon/early evening, because there’s usually a lot of fun that happens post-event, as people leave the event around dinner time. Luckily my flight the next morning isn’t too early — I paid a few extra bucks not to have to take the 5 am flight from Portland, opting for the 9 am flight out instead. This event is going to be smaller scale than the Cider Summit in Chicago that’s usually paired with CiderCon, so we’ll see how it goes!
In May, I’ve scheduled a week off in between the end of the academic year program and the start of the Undergraduate Incubator Summer Track in order to finally get back to GLINTCAP in Grand Rapids, Michigan, this year. I wasn’t able to attend the event the last two years due to my responsibilities at the incubator. However, one of the suggestions my summer students gave me at the end of the program this past July was to start things a week later, so they’re able to catch their breath after the end of the school year. I chuckled when they brought this up and told them that I’d already planned to start the program a week later in 2024 due to the timing of GLINTCAP. If they’ll have me, I plan to volunteer as a judge, but I’ll steward again if they’re short on stewards as happens some years. I’ve missed spending a couple of days in Grand Rapids the last couple of springs — now that we’re far enough removed from the shutdowns of 2020, hopefully the downtown has bounced back a bit and a few more places are open as compared to when I was there last in the summer of 2021.
As I’d mentioned in the first part of the post, I’m going to attend the Great American Beer Festival in Denver this fall rather than Denver Startup Week. A number of folks from the cider industry attend this event, and I feel like it’s time to give Cider Finder a test at this event. Actually, had events taken place in person in the fall of 2020, Denver Startup Week and GABF were slated to take place back-to-back. It’s too bad things worked out the way that they did that year. However, I’ve wanted to attend GABF for years, and 2024 is the perfect opportunity.
Startup Weekend Iowa City will return to its normal mid-July time frame in 2024, since EntreFest is moving back to Cedar Rapids this year. I’m planning a series of three community events in the coming year — I’m going to give Startup Weekend Iowa Online one more shot the first weekend in April, Startup Weekend Iowa City will take place in the middle of July, and then a new event that I’m tentatively calling “Follow-Up Weekend” will take place after Labor Day in September. Follow-Up Weekend will follow the same format as Startup Weekend, but will be designed specifically for existing ideas and startups to have a focused weekend plus demo day to make the kind of substantial progress forward seen during a Startup Weekend. I’m going to limit the number of tickets sold for Follow-Up Weekend to 30, or 6-8 startup teams plus a handful of people who want to build but aren’t otherwise attached to a startup. In January, I’ll start pulling teams together for these different events.
Speaking of pulling people together, I’m starting the process of recruiting a “brain trust” of entrepreneurs and experts around the area who have expressed interest in doing more for their entrepreneurial ecosystem. I have roughly 50 students who could benefit from this “brain trust,” as could the events I mentioned above. We’re going to need all hands on deck in the coming year in order to make everything work and continue to build what we’ve started creating here.
The summer will be busy yet again. I’m opening the applications for the Undergraduate Incubator Summer Track in the coming days, and I expect even more applications in 2024 than I had in 2023. As I mentioned in part 1, I’ve already had students stop by my office and ask about the summer program — some of them are already thinking that far ahead! I expect 30-50 applications in the coming months and plan to shut off applications around Spring Break, so I can have a chance to talk with all of the applicants before making a decision on the final cohort. I don’t have to do too much with the curriculum — the material from last summer will work again for a completely new audience this coming summer. Most of the work ahead of me involves recruiting students for the cohort and speakers for each Monday.
Between all of the cider travel, I got the green light to travel to South by Southwest for a few days in March and to take a couple of students along for the adventure. I’ve wanted to go to SXSW for years now, and haven’t been able to justify the expense of the trip. The university wants me to attend the Startup Track from March 8 to March 11 — plenty of time to soak up the experience of SXSW and Austin, Texas. There are a couple of cideries in Austin that I’d like to visit as well as well as the Austin CiderCade, if the timing works out. I’m already starting to develop my itinerary for that trip — probably arriving on March 7 and coming back on March 12. I also have to select a couple of students to go with me on that trip — it does take place the first weeeknd of Spring Break, so that might factor into some of their plans.
There will probably be at least a couple other trips with students to pitch competitions throughout North America. I’ve been pushing students to apply for a number of competitions in the United States and Canada, so we’ll see who gets into any of the competitions, from Texas and Louisiana to Manitoba. If the competition is in the United States, I give the student the option whether or not he or she wants me to go along for moral support. If a student winds up in an international competition, I will go along unless the student has a ton of experience traveling outside the United States. This past year, I had a student take part in pitch competitions at The University of Georgia but I didn’t go along with him to Athens, as it was inside the country. A couple of the competitions overlap, so some students may have to travel across the United States unaccompanied.
I’m also planning to take the Summer Track students to EntreFest in Cedar Rapids this June. I’ve applied to speak once again, so we’ll see if I end up doing that in addition to guiding the students around the convention for two days. The entire cohort is going to stay in Cedar Rapids the Thursday night of EntreFest, so students aren’t having to drive back and forth multiple times. The summer students had a blast at last year’s event, and I want the same experience for the 2024 cohort, even though they’ve (unwisely) decided to move things back north to a neighborhood that I’ve said in the past isn’t really designed for events like EntreFest.
One thing I hope to also do but don’t hold out much hope for is to be able to facilitate more than one external Startup Weekend event this coming year. I’m scheduled to facilitate an online event for the same group at UT San Antonio — not the same as actually traveling there to do an event, but we’re going to make it work. There seems to be a lack of events taking place in the United States — every event that needs a facilitator seems to be taking place in Europe, Asia, or South America. I hope that there’s a resurgence of Startup Weekend events in the coming year or two, because I’d love to get back out there and start seeing different parts of the country again, making ideas real.
Like I said before, 2024 is going to be a great year and should continue the trend of tremendous growth that I’ve had since 2021, both personally and professionally. Each week brings something new and exciting to the table, and there’s barely time to slow down and catch my breath. I do have a couple of weeks of vacation built into the calendar between the end of the Undergraduate Incubator Summer Track and the start of the fall semester, like I had this past year. I fully intend to disconnect from social media this time around — something I failed to do in 2023. There are still a number of projects that need to be done around the house and yard, and August will be the time for that.
I’m serious this time — three week Internet break in August.
I don’t know if I say it enough, but I’m really thankful for all of you who read my ramblings on here and have stuck with me for all of these years. You are the people who make this all worthwhile. 2024 will mark this blog’s tenth anniversary — really hard to believe that I’ve stuck with this as long as I have. I’ve learned so much over this decade, but I know there is still so much more to learn.
I’m not going to make any predictions for the coming year — the last time I did that, a global pandemic shut everything down just a couple of months later. There is so much on the calendar right now that anything could happen, even as I try to will things in one direction. Appreciate the time you have and the people around you, and I hope you and your loved ones have a fantastic 2024.