The 4th annual Forward Technology Festival starts tomorrow in Madison, Wisconsin and runs until August 24th. This year’s version of the Festival has a record 19 events over 10 days and it’s likely that over 5000 people will attend. Although the August 21st’ Forward Technology Conference sold out today, there are still a multitude of ways you can participate in the festival.
The Festival’s goal is to bring Madison’s technology community together to put on events for a statewide and regional audience and gives people from the community a chance to learn about Wisconsin’s tech community and connect with people from around the state. There are events for entrepreneurs, investors, technologists, programmers, scientists, makers and anyone who’s interested in the world of tech in Wisconsin. Whether you’re already in the industry or are interested in learning more, I’m confident you’ll enjoy many of the events.
The Festival kicks off tomorrow with the Capital Entrepreneurs Open Social, a chance to hang out with some of Madison’s top entrepreneurs, and the High Tech Happy Hour Pecha Kucha presentations about lessons learned through entrepreneurship. I’ll be speaking about my startup story at the hthh event.
Thursday brings the Badger Startup Summit, an event that invites Wisconsin native and UW alumni entrepreneurs to come back to Madison to connect and share experiences. I’ll also be sharing my experiences about doing business in Madison and Chile, along with a stellar group of Badgers.
Last Thursday was Demo Day for De-Pe, the class I teach at Universidad Catolica in Antofagasta, Chile. It was the culmination of a 12 week class designed to give the students in the class the tools they need to be successful running a business. Nine teams showed up to the first class twelve weeks ago. Some had an idea, others a functioning business, others just a dream. But by the last Thursday, everyone had something they could be proud of.
It was amazing to see the progress the entrepreneurs made by the end of the course and I’m really proud of all of our entrepreneurs who were willing to keep an open mind and improve their product each week.
But the best part, for me, was that each entrepreneur was working on a real problem. It was refreshing to see. Nobody was there because entreprneurship is cool. Nobody was there for the free food. Nobody was there for the free beer. Nobody was there to get famous. Nobody had the next photo sharing app or the next cat social network.
Everyone had a real problem they wanted to solve. Everyone was working on their idea because it was a problem they had. And that helped someone. By the end of the class, everyone found a niche where a customer was willing to pay them to solve the problem. There were no bullshit.
Our class follows a methodology we call EPIC. Luckily it works the same way in English and Spanish:
Enganchar – Engage
First, we break down the myths of entrepeneurship. You don’t need a ton of money. That it’s necessary to fail small in order to avoid failing big. That if you fail its not because you were stupid, lazy, stole the money or a combination of the three.
Poder – Power
Second, we empower the teams by giving them the tools they need to succeed. Entrepreneurship has become more scientific and we give the teams the best practices to be able to succeed. We force them to pivot to find a niche, simplify and find success on a small scale.
Integrar – Integrate
Third, we integrate our students into the entrepreneurial ecosystem. We bring local and international entrepreneurs to Antofagasta to help mentor students. We force the students out of the classroom to speak with their clients and share their ideas with entrepreneurs and actually listen to their feedback.
Comunicar- Communicate
Fourth, students need to be able to communicate their value proposition to clients, to potential business partners and to potential investors. That’s the first step toward sales. We teach clear communication via multiple presentations that end in Demo Day.
While it was a bit of a long haul traveling to Antofagasta 8 times in 12 weeks, it was completely worth it. Our students are exactly what entrepreneruship should be, not the bullshit that’s permeating most entrepeneurial ecosystems. I have no doubt that a year from now all of our entrepreneurs will be successful in whatever they’re working on. Here’s some of our projects (spanish news story):
1st Prize – $5000
Veneno Detect – The world’s first rapid detection test for araña de rincón spider bites. The current test is to go to the hospital to wait for your flesh to start to rot. If it does, it’s araña de rincón, if it’s not, you’re safe.
2nd Prize – $3000
Ecocrea – Solar panel arrays for off the gird mining offices to replace diesel generators at lower cost.
3rd Prize – $2000
Standmat – 3d video animations to increase sales for companies wanting to sell to mining companies.
I’m sick and tired of many people’s mistaken impression of what entrepreneurship actually is. It all started a few years ago with the Facebook movie and now we have a big problem. Too many people have the wrong idea. The douchebaggery quotient in the “entrepreneurial ecosystem” is so high a few non entrepreneur friends have told me that they think there’s something innate about startups that attracts massive douchebaggery. That used to be the domain of bankers. Now its startups. So I’m here to set the record straight.
Entrepreneurship is not dressing in whatever clothes you want, coming in to work at whatever hour you’d like to work on your social app that’s going to be the new Twitter for Facebook for Instagram and if you could only get 5% of the market, you’ll be able to sell for $1.1b too! It’s not working on an idea in hopes that you can sell it one year later. It’s not easy.
It’s not getting out of bed at 12pm, going to networking events and drinking as much free crappy beer and eating lukewarm mediocre pizza and telling people you’re the CEO of the company when you’re the only one “working” on your “idea.” It’s not applying to countless incubators, contests and pitch competitions. It’s not talking about your idea that’s been in stealth mode for six months and won’t leave for another year. If ever. It’s not working on a problem that nobody has.
Real entrepreneurship solves a problem someone has…and they’ll pay you to solve it for them. Real entrepreneurship is hard. It’s a struggle. It’s like getting up each morning and walking into the kitchen and putting your hand on the hot burner. Ten minutes later, someone walks in an starts smashing your hand with a frying pan. All the while, they’re laughing at you. “You think you’re going to succeed with that product? You think you can execute that? You think you can beat the incumbent company with 1000x more employees than you?” And you just have to take it with a smile and go about your day proving the critics wrong.
But at least you get to wear the clothes you want.
Obviously there’s some days where you get to take your hand off the burner and the laughing and the smashing stop. But then you’re going to an office, convincing people to pay you for your product and shipping product. Iterating. Solving a real problem. And then you have to deal with a whole new set of laughing, smashing hurdles.
So if you’re getting into entrepreneurship to wear comfy clothes, drink free beer and eat crappy pizza at meetups and pretend you’re the founder of a $1b company when you just have an idea and think it’s worth more than a ham sandwich, you’re probably in the wrong business. And you just might be a #starthole.
I’m excited to finally share Exosphere, a project I’ve been working on for the past few months. Located in the beautifully restored Palacio Concha, Exosphere is a community for entrepreneurs and creatives who want to take control of their lives and support themselves via their own projects. Whether you already have a business and want to use coworking, or just have an idea and need mentors or someone to share your day to day struggles, Exosphere is the place for you.
Exosphere is special because it’s not just another coworking space, although you can use it that way. It’s special because of Exosphere founder Skinner Layne’s overarching vision. He wants to change education, entrepreneurship and at the base of it all, empower people achieve their dreams and break free from having to work for a big company their entire lives.
His vision is the following: most people have the potential ability to create their own business, but most lack the tools and the entrepreneurial push to actually get started and then have success. He believes that you can teach entrepreneurship. That people will have success if they have real community around them. People to share ideas. People to share failures. To keep them motivated. To share contacts. To find business partners. And foster success.
I know it sounds like a massive goal, but I believe Skinner and his growing team can do it. I first met Skinner in 2010 when I first got to Santiago. Skinner sent my business partner Jesse an email seeing if we wanted to meet another gringo who’d moved to Chile and we quickly became good friends, helping each other out with business challenges. When I first met Skinner, he was working on a ton of projects in parallel. About a year ago when he first got the idea for exosphere, I saw a change. He dropped all of his other projects. Our weekly meeting turned into brainstorming sessions about education, entrepreneurship, the future of work and empowering individuals. That’s when I knew he was onto something big. When he invited me to be on their board, I knew I had to do it.
Skinner’s persuaded his cofounders Antonio Manno and Amit Sonawane to come to Chile and a flood of foreign entrepreneurial talent has followed. The first entrepreneurs and mentors are already starting to work out of Exosphere. It’s opening as a coworking space this Friday. Foreigners are moving from multiple countries around the world just to be a part of Exosphere. Mentorship, community and entrepreneurial education will start next month.
Skinner, Antonio, Amit and the rest of Exosphere are trying to change the world. One life at a time. It’s going to be fun to watch them try. You can follow their progress on their Exosphere Blog, Facebook and read some of Skinner’s essays on his personal blog.
If you’d like more information, please contact me. And if you’d like to go to the party, post a comment at the end of this blog.
The 4th annual Forward Technology Festival starts tomorrow in Madison, Wisconsin and runs until August 24th. This year’s version of the Festival has a record 19 events over 10 days and it’s likely that over 5000 people will attend. Although the August 21st’ Forward Technology Conference sold out today, there are still a multitude of ways you can participate in the festival.
