Bard Center Entrepreneurship Council

Welcome to the Entrepreneurship Council Blog

admin — Fri, 22 Sep 2006 07:54:02 +0000

The Entrepreneurship Council is an interactive organization driven to provide networking, educational, and many other valuable functions throughout the year. Entrepreneurship Council events provide excellent opportunities for alumni and students to exchange ideas, experiences, and contacts with other members, CU-Denver and Bard Center Staff, Advisory Council members, and members of the Denver business community. Be sure to check out our upcoming events!

Join the Bard Center Entrepreneurship Council Today. Membership is free.

The Business Survival Series: Learn how to effectively generate new sales leads

Aaron Sagray — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 19:58:45 +0000

The Business Survival Series is returning to the Bard Center on Wednesday, October 8th at 6PM. The panel will focus on lead generation, and help business owners and entrepreneurs learn effective techniques to find and fill the sales funnel with quality, targeted leads. Our panelists are targeted lead generation veterans, and have lead their clients and companies to double digit growth.

More information will be announced shortly after Labor Day.

BEN, Book Signing and other coming events

Catherine Kunst — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 21:03:59 +0000

This is a quick reminder that the second Bard Entrepreneurship Network MeetUp is tonight at 6PM at MetroBoom. I hope to see you all there.

Tomorrow night (August 21), Gregg Vanourek will be signing his book Life Entrepreneurs: Ordinary People Creating Extraordinary Lives at 7:30 PM at the LoDo Tattered Cover - 1628 16th Street at Wynkoop in Denver. (Event Flyer). I have been talking with Gregg about doing some exciting seminars at the Bard Center this year. His book is a wonderful introduction to the topics that will be covered.

Finally, Sue Goodin, a Bard Center Alumna & CEO of the Progressive Health Center, is hosting a Women’s Wellness Expo on October 11 from 8:00 AM to 3:00 PM. This expo will give women tips on maintaining cardiovascular and bone health, managing menopause, balancing mood and taming insomnia. You can get more information on this important event here.

Bard Center Alumna in the News

Catherine Kunst — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 20:41:10 +0000

Last week Beth Polizzotto (Bard Center Program Coordinator) & Jung Park (Bard Center Alumnus & CEO of Metroboom) were invited by Patricia Kurgan to attend the annual Outstanding Women in Business Awards Luncheon hosted by the Denver Business Journal.

Patricia won the NAWBO (National Association of Women Business Owners) Member of the Year award. There were a few articles linking back to the Denver Business Journal story on Patricia, but my favorite was this one “Bad Ass Women in the News - August 11.”

Patricia Kurgan is the President and owner of Astro Logistics, Inc., a freight arranger and green supply chain consulting company in Denver. Patricia earned her MBA from the University of Colorado Denver and her Certificate in Entrepreneurship from the Bard Center. She was a finalist in the 2005 Bard Center Business Plan Competition. She started her business in the Bard Center Incubator. Way to go!!!!

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Don’t forget to send me your success stories for our alumni news page.

The next Bard Entrepreneurship Network (BEN) Meetup is Wednesday August 20 at Metroboom. Register now.

And finally, I’ve been waiting for him to introduce himself but Tom Murphy has recently stepped up as President of the Entrepreneurship Council giving Sharon Moulton a well deserved hiatus. Hopefully Tom & Sharon will both write something more formal soon. I know that the Entrepreneurship Council has some fun and exciting events planned for the coming months.

Bard Entrepreneurship Network Meetup

Catherine Kunst — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 15:48:32 +0000

You should have all received an email from me about BEN (the new Bard Entrepreneurship Network Meetup). If you have not and want to be on the mailing list please let me know.

Come see Entrepreneurship in Action!

What is BEN? The Bard Entrepreneurship Network (BEN) Meetup was founded to foster social mentoring relationships among the Bard Center’s many faculty, staff, students, alumni, advisory council members, incubator companies, and friends in a fun environment.

BEN is the creation of three University of Colorado Denver Business School Alumni with ties to the Bard Center for Entrepreneurship: Jeff Calderone, Jung Park and Denton Crofts. Jeff and Denton each founded companies in the Bard Center Incubator. Jeff’s company, Elevated Third, has graduated out of the Incubator. Denton has also moved on (cofounder of Extended Presence a former Bard Center Incubator Company) and is now the CEO of Hatton Point. Jung was the winner of the 2004 Bard Center Business Plan Competition for his company MetroBoom.

When & Where is BEN? On the third Wednesday of each month, starting July 23, a BEN member will host a reception at their place of work. The first meeting will be hosted by Jeff Calderone at Elevated Third. Jeff now has 7 employees in his LoDo office. Sign up at here to register. Events will be limited to 45 people. If you have problems registering, you can contact me (Catherine.kunst@ucdenver.edu) or Jeff (jcalderone@elevatedthird.com) directly if you plan to attend this month or want to get involved in future months.

Why BEN? Jeff, Jung and Denton realized that even though they completed their degrees and successfully launched and grew their companies, they continued to benefit from each others experiences. They have served as mentors to each other over the years as they struggled to build their companies. They hope that by creating BEN, the benefits they have reaped from social mentoring can spread among the entire Bard Center community.

Since BEN Meetups are being hosted at a different start-up each month, I hope that you will get involved and volunteer your location as a potential future meeting site.

Hope to see you all next week!

Dizgo!

Catherine Kunst — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 18:00:30 +0000

Jeff Kohn presented Dizgo last night at the new tech meetup in Boulder. I saw at least 10 Bard Center Alumni or friends in the audience. I’m sure there were more.

While some of the other presenters had technical difficulties, Jeff nailed his presentation. It was great to see.

So what is this Dizgo thing you might wonder? Dizgo provides mobile (direct to cell phone or other device) discounts on the go. During his presentation Jeff gave an example of creating a coupon for that night for a free beer and edamame at Hapa Sushi. Awesome. I hope that some folks took avadantage of that great promotion. For now, Dizgo is operational in Boulder, CO but they should be expanding across Colorado soon.

Here’s a recent release that Jeff sent out.

We are pleased to announce the public release of Dizgo in our first market, Downtown Boulder, Colorado.

Dizgo (discounts on-the-go) is the world’s first completely self-service mobile advertising platform that allows brick and mortar retailers to generate real-time demand for their products and instantly get paying customers in the door.

For consumers, Dizgo provides a free and convenient way to find nearby deals using your mobile phone. We are currently featuring food & beverage discounts only, but plan to begin offering deals on retail products and services soon.

Go ahead, try it now! Our patented system provides two easy ways to get instant discounts on your phone:

Deal Search: Send a simple text message to 34946 (DIZGO) with the type of food or drink you want a deal on (examples: sushi, pizza, thai, ice cream, lunch, beer, happy hour, or a business name like Hapa or Bacaro). Dizgo will quickly send you back a text message with the closest related deals currently being offered from nearby establishments.

Deal Alerts: You can be the first to know about exclusive deals going on at your favorite establishments by subscribing to receive notifications on your mobile phone. Go to http://my.dizgo.com and sign-up to receive deal alerts from specific establishments at specific times. We promise you will only receive the deals you want and never any spam.

We hope you will try out our service, and please help us get the word out by telling your own friends and favorite businesses about Dizgo.

The Dizgo Team

Support an alumnus - Give Dizgo a try. http://www.dizgo.com

Bard Center Alum to Present at New Tech Meetup

Catherine Kunst — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 18:34:30 +0000

I’ve run into some of you at the Boulder Denver New Technology Meetups held the first Tuesday of every month at CU Boulder. I hope you can all come out to support a Bard Center Alumnus who will be presenting July 1.

I was pretty excited to see that Jeff Kohn, the 2nd place Bard Center Business Plan Competition Winner in 2007, is going to be one of the presenters. I love hearing your success stories so please do call (contact us) or email me (catherine.kunst -at- ucdenver.edu) with updates!

I hope to see you all there! Be sure to register - these meetups fill quickly.

Time and Date: Tuesday, July 1st at 6:00PM
Location: Wolf Law Building CU Campus Wittemeyer Courtroom (First Floor)

The presenters include:

Gnip
Presented by Peter Williams & Jud Valeski
Gnip will be demo’ing its first step in what will be a suite of pragmatic data portability solutions for today’s web services.
How the group can help: product feedback and utilization by relevant parties
http://gnipcentral.com

mobileXware
Presented by Jason Ryer, Joel Lenorovitz
Demo’ing mobileXware’s flagship product, xFit, that helps people achieve their fitness goals by putting Fitness in the Palm of Your Hand
How the group can help: We are looking for general feedback on our product
http://www.mobileXware.com

Dizgo, Inc
Presented by Jeff Kohn
Dizgo’s web-based advertising platform (Advertising Management Portal) and show its mobile integration and SMS delivery of real-time, hyper local content.
How the group can help: looking for potential syndication partners, get feedback from potential users, encourage people to opt-in to receive great local (downtown Boulder) discounts-on-the-go!
http://www.dizgo.com

DandyId
Presented by Sara Czyzewicz, Arron Kallenberg, and Anthony Dimitre
DandyId.org is a repository for users’ service identifiers and API for third-party sites.
How the group can help: a) signing up for a dandyid and adding their identifiers to our system, and b) use our widget or services API.
http://www.dandyid.org

mShopper
Presented by Jeff Kohn
We will demo an innovative, market-leading mobile commerce (shopping) application that runs on most web-enabled cell phones.
How the group can help: looking for potential syndication partners, get feedback from potential users, encourage people to opt-in to receive great local (downtown Boulder) discounts-on-the-go!
http://www.mshopper.com

Lijit
Presented by David Fero and Micah Baldwin
Lijit is launching a new ad platform for publishers.
How the group can help: General feedback around the efficacy of an advertising platform for publishers within their search results.
http://www.lijit.com

blitzlocal
Presented by Dennis Yu
High level overview of social advertising using Facebook
http://www.blitzlocal.com

Tensegrity gets coverage on Engadget

Aaron Sagray — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 16:00:36 +0000

Tensegrity Prothetics, the 2006 Bard Center Business Plan Competition winner, was recently covered on Engadget, which writes about new technologies and tech gadgetry. The blog is very well read, and it consistently ranks in the top 10 in the world.

Congrats to the Tensegrity team!

Tensegrity prosthetic foot promises to make walking easier on Engadget

Expediting Innovation

Catherine Kunst — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 21:40:19 +0000

A few weeks ago, Richard Bard introduced me to Luis Solis, the CEO of GroupSystems.

On June 25, GroupSystems is hosting their Expediting Innovation Spotlight Series in Denver at the Curtis Hotel (1405 Curtis Street, Denver, CO). This is a free event with limited seating so register soon!

The GroupSystems Expediting Innovation Spotlight Series features leaders from government, defense, business and education sectors sharing how they are driving innovation and change within their organizations.

Learn more & register here.

Let’s Hear it for our Winners!

Catherine Kunst — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 02:03:11 +0000

The 7th Annual Business Plan Competition is now complete. The finalists did an amazing job with their presentations this morning.

Dave O’Brien, our current entrepreneur in residence and CEO of the Business Catapult, along with Jono Shuster of the Entrepreneurial Standards Forum, worked with each finalist to improve their oral presentation. I did not see a single powerpoint slide with a cramped income statement or balance sheet this year. In every case the value proposition was clear. Awesome job everyone. Huzzah!

Let’s hear it for our winners who were awarded more than $100,000 in cash and in-kind services.

1st Place. Developing Minds Software, Dawn & Mason Gregg, Michael Erskine, Colette Hanley, Lynn Sargent. This is the 2nd year that Developing Minds Software entered the Bard Center Business Plan Competition. Their perseverance has certainly paid off. Developing Minds Software serves families and educational institutions challenged with serving the developmentally disabled children by allowing practitioners to systematically collect data, assess the student progress, and adapt student programs to the changing needs.

2nd Place. Gobai-Culturally Inspired Cuisine, Kaidan Nguyen. Look for this novel restaurant to launch near 17th and Pearl sometime in the coming year. Gobai will create fresh and healthy Vietnamese-inspired dishes made with quality ingredients that are fresh from local farms to the customer’s plate. Gobai is designed to reawaken the fast casual restaurant industry with recipes that are nutritious and eclectic, that is served with the speed of traditional fast-food restaurants.

3rd Place. Snoasis Medical Inc., Robert Tofe - a Bard Center Incubator Company. Snoasis Medical is a biomedical company that offers dental regenerative products for use in both hard and soft tissue applications. Snoasis Medical products target periodontal disease and damage caused by trauma and gingival recession.

4th -6th Place (in alphabetical order)

Healthy Travels, Raj Joseph - Winner of our first International Award sponsored by the IIB and CIBER at the University of Colorado Denver. Healthy Travels is a global healthcare service enabler that offers a comprehensive medical tourist solution by providing a premier healthcare experience outside of the United States coupled with unique first class travel opportunities during the recuperation and recovery phase.Robotics Assisted Gait Training, Timothy S. Nicklas

Robotics Assisted Gait Training , Tim Nicklas - Winner of our NonProfit Award sponsored by New Century Ventures and the Ward Family. Robotics Assisted Gait Training is a nonprofit business at Childrens Hospital for installing and operating a system that provides rigorous, customized monitoring for gait training utilizing modern technology that implements tried and trued therapies for patients with gait impairment.

Tissue Genetics Jeffrey Holt, M.D., James Bowman, Kimberly Gibson & Vanessa Clark - was the winner of the Bioscience Award. Tissue Genetics is a biomedical diagnostic company that identifies patients with genetic diseases, helping to determine their optimum course of care. Their novel diagnostic kits will establish a new paradigm for screening for hereditary diseases.

Brad Feld gave an amazing keynote address on the role of failure in the future successes of entrepreneurs.

I thank all of you who were able to attend.