It’s hard to believe, but this post marks the tenth year I’ve published a review of the past year. Back in 2015, I had no idea what was in store for me in the following years. I was just a guy interested in entrepreneurship and technology trying to learn as much as I could and meet as many people as possible. If you had told me ten years ago that I’d be building the newest hub for entrepreneurship in the state, fixing some of the biggest problems in our statewide entrepreneurial ecosystem, I don’t think that I would have believed you.
Back then, I just enjoyed building Web sites and Web apps and creating videos as a way to keep myself occupied while I was home raising my oldest daughter. I’d decided to do the work-at-home dad thing in 2012 when she was born. The extra income was nice while my wife was in her residency, and it was a nice way to keep my brain active in between diaper changes and feedings. By 2014, I was starting to look for opportunities to meet other people building things in the area – a feeling most people understand now that we’ve lived through the isolation from the pandemic in 2020. I started learning about this concept of “entrepreneurship” through friends on social media – back in an era when social media wasn’t quite a hellscape but the flow was definitely in that direction.
Shortly after attending a few events and having some long conversations, I was hooked. A few short months later, this blog was born and change began to happen. Launch parties, Startup Weekends, hackathons, Startup Weeks, business formations and dissolutions, networking events, friendships, partnerships, drinking cider on both coasts, competition judging, program creation, a month in eastern Africa, and a tumultuous stint at The University of Iowa were to follow. I’ve seen people enter and leave the local entrepreneurial ecosystem (and sometimes return,) and have helped dozens of founders go from zero to one. I’ve been able to see the inner workings of so many organizations and one bowling alley in western Michigan. I’ve had the chance to explore international borders (haven’t been to Europe, though,) former mental hospital buildings, and world-renowned cider orchards.
It’s been quite the adventure over the last decade, and this year was no exception.
I learned a number of lessons over the past twelve months. I learned who my true friends were in the startup community and who were just there for show. Quickly pivoting and minimum viable products are important not just in developing a business, but are important in the context of a career as well. Obstacles will always be there, but you have to harness the right resources to avoid and defeat them. Most importantly, I learned where the real power lies in the entrepreneurial ecosystem, and it’s not the loudest or the biggest players, especially when they are hopelessly disorganized.
As I would always explain to my students, the career of an entrepreneur is going to have major highs and lows. I always referenced the book The Messy Middle when talking about this – the eventual trajectory is (hopefully) up and to the right, but you’re going to have days that are amazing paired with other days that make you feel incredibly low. There were days to celebrate – spending time with friends at CiderCon in Oregon during an ice storm; dispensing startup advice to artists and creatives at SXSW while at a punk rock club well past midnight; receiving a hero’s welcome from my former university colleagues and students during EntreFEST; finishing the build-out of the podcast studio at the EntrePartners Innovation Center; and learning that a team of your former students received venture term sheets to build their dream. These examples, along with dozens of other little complements and victories have made this year amazing.
Seeing my Innovation Center built out and people signing up to be part of it were the biggest wins of the year. Making the decision to open the center was the best thing I did all year – not only did it give a home to several entrepreneurs who otherwise felt disengaged, but it brought so many people out of the woodwork who I haven’t talked with in years. It offers people an alternative to the biggest and loudest players in the area (who have burned more bridges than they realize) led by someone they trust with a track record of taking existing programs and revitalizing them. This was my first foray into building a program from scratch, but the principles are the same. It just involves a lot more time with Allen wrenches and screwdrivers.
When I decided to build out the Innovation Center, I knew that this was my chance to “do it right.” I’d seen what was done elsewhere, and the main thing I kept seeing was that new and inexperienced entrepreneurs were falling through the cracks, receiving help in a transactional way and then left on their own. I was guilty of this when EntrePartners just ran events – Startup Weekend has a definitive purpose, as do Iowa City Open Coffee and 1 Million Cups. Increasing the number of events helps, but it doesn’t create the kind of full pipeline that is needed here in Iowa. As I’ve said hundreds of times, we have all of the pieces statewide to create an amazing entrepreneurial ecosystem, but through turf wars, there’s no cohesiveness. The EntrePartners Innovation Center is going to be the glue that holds all of the pieces together (and will create better pieces if the existing ones can’t or don’t want to fit.) It’s my goal to work together as we continue to work, operating from the new norms, rules, and agreements, that we will convene to work together.
I’ve seen firsthand what happens when organizations insist on creating little fiefdoms – they end up broken, toxic, and playing second fiddle to their competition. You can either try to fix this from the inside (as I tried and failed) or you can build around them. The Innovation Center is the first piece in building a solution to the problems facing early-stage entrepreneurs – creating that glue or that complete pipeline that has the fewest number of people dropping out or getting lost. The pipeline starts with Startup Weekend Iowa City, continues with programs like Follow-Up Weekend and Coworking + Accountability among others, continues further with incubation and mentorship through the Braintrust, access to pitch competitions through the Unfireable newsletter, connections with funding from public and private sources, and “ends” with eventual graduation of the entrepreneur’s company to a local headquarters, where they can start to give back through donations of money and time to future EntrePartners Innovation Center members.
This all wouldn’t have been possible without my friends, fans, and followers, both locally and across the country. I really found out who my true friends were this spring and summer after I left the university. What really surprised me is the willingness of people to open up to me over the last few months – an eight month-long Airing of Grievances against the status quo as people find out what I’m building. I received an amazing welcome at EntreFEST not two months after The Change™ back in April and then again at the InnoVenture Challenge event a few weeks ago. These last few months have shown me that I’m on the right track, and the grind is worth it. This is a moment where we stand knowing what we are fighting for. We’re not fighting against, it’s what we’re fighting for.
Speaking of the InnoVenture Challenge – I had an amazing time at the event at the beginning of this month. I helped judge the first round of applicants, and there were some serious contenders in my stack of applications. It was great to see so many people from all over the state that evening and is a fun way to cap off the “entrepreneurial year” as it was last year. It was also the first event where I had EntrePartners listed as my organization on my name tag – I didn’t have a chance to get that listed on my EntreFest name tag in June, unfortunately.
Over these last few months, I really found that I can focus on what can be, unburdened by what has been. Half of the programs I’m implementing now or want to implement next year is stuff I wanted to do the last two years but was not allowed or wasn’t given resources because it didn’t look good on some spreadsheet. I’ve been bouncing around the Braintrust idea and have wanted to increase the number of networking and social events since 2022. The version of Side Hustle School I was allowed to present was heavily watered down from the multi-session series I wanted to do, and it looks like they watered it down even further this semester into some kind of panel discussion. Now that the facility is settled and funding is starting to come in, it’s time to expand EntrePartners’ offerings further. It is time for us to do what we have been doing, and that time is every day.
One win from this year that I don’t want to breeze past has two parts: in September, I was appointed to the Main Street West Branch board, and just this month, I was elected Vice President of the board. I originally put my hat in the ring to join the board because I’ve really enjoyed the improvements that have been made along Main Street, as it’s the closest business district to my house out in the country. It’s much easier to drive the couple of miles to West Branch to pick up a gallon of milk, mail packages, or grab a bite to eat than it is to go all the way in to Iowa City. Along with my desire to have a thriving business district near my house, being part of the board is a great way to tie what I’m doing at EntrePartners into brick-and-mortar retail, as nearly all of my current members are building technology products. I feel like it’s a win-win for both organizations.
So, I feel like this year was “up and to the right” overall. There were some setbacks, but there were so many little successes combined with an entrepreneurial community that showed they appreciate what I do. The guy that just started out attending some events and building cool stuff ten years ago went on to solve some enormous problems, befriend the right people, and collect some once-in-a-lifetime experiences. However, this feels like I’m just getting started and can’t wait to see what the next year – let alone ten years – has in store.
Continue on to part 2 of this blog post to find out what’s on the to-do list for next year. If I manage to pull off half of the things on the list, I’ll consider it a success!