Start Up Wisconsin

The next Inventors and Entrepreneurs Forum of Greater Milwaukee (I&E Forum) is scheduled for Wednesday, October 8th. It’s A Double Header!!

How I Did It: A real, live success story.  Gary Zimmerman founded Creative Business Interiors Inc. in 1991 and has built it into a 70 employee leader in its industry. He will share his experiences in founding and growing his business as well as discuss some of his philosophies for success.

Creative Business Interiors won MMAC’s Future 50 Award three times, a prestigious award that recognizes fast-growth companies in the metro area.  Earlier this year Zimmerman received the Chairman’s Award from MMAC’s Council of Small Business Executives (COSBE) and is the immediate past chairman of COSBE’s Board of Director.  He is the current chairman of COSBE’s Executive Roundtable Program and serves on the Steering Committee of the CEOs of Growing Businesses.

AND, hear all about BizStarts Milwaukee, a brand new initiative designed to foster innovation and entrepreneurship in SE Wisconsin.  Learn how it can aid you in starting, growing and making your company more successful.  David Linz with the Wisconsin Entrepreneurs’ Network and Dan Steininger, co-director of the Successful Entrepreneur Investors angel network and vice president of BizStarts, will explain the many benefits of BizStarts and demonstrate the use of its newly launched website.

The meeting is FREE and open to the public.  Registration starts at 5:30 PM, the meeting at 5:45 PM, and is held at the Tommy G. Thompson Youth Center at State Fair Park (enter Gate 5, just south of I-94 on 84th Street).  Our usual introductions and networking will cap off the evening.

Feel free to contact us if you have any questions.

Below is the article from the Milwaukee Business Times:

BizStarts Milwaukee, a nonprofit entity dedicated to fostering and promoting entrepreneurship in southeastern Wisconsin, officially launched today.
The organization wants to help launch or accelerate 50 new businesses by the end of 2010, an effort that is needed because of the relatively low numbers of new businesses created in the Milwaukee area, said Dan Steininger, vice president of BizStarts.
“The brutal fact that confronts us is that Milwaukee is 45th in the nation in getting new businesses started and 47th in the nation in getting venture capital raised,” he said. “Most new jobs are created by new companies.”
As a nonprofit entity, BizStarts Milwaukee will focus on connecting entrepreneurs with the resources to launch and grow their companies. The organization will assist with business planning, connecting with early-stage investing and other issues that face startup companies.
The project has four major initiatives:
BizStarts Connect - An online network, featured at www.bizstartsmilwaukee.com, to connect entrepreneurs with resources such as investors or financing, attorneys, marketing and more. The site will soon expand to include a social media platform, so members can post questions and ideas, said John Torinus, president of BizStarts.
BizStarts Venture Track - A fast-track program for high-potential companies, which will include mentoring and intensive coaching.
BizStarts Learn - An educational outreach program, where entrepreneurs will speak with K-12 and college students about starting companies.
BizStarts Buzz - A program that will celebrate funding deals, new business startups and successful exits.
“It’s not easy to start a company, but we can make it less difficult,” Torinus said. “All of the big companies we have here (in the Milwaukee area) were started here. It’s obvious that we can and must grow our own companies.”
BizStarts has already connected with several successful entrepreneurs such as George Dalton, chief executive officer of NOVO 1, Tina Chang, CEO of Syslogic, and Randy Spaulding, owner of Spaulding Clinical Research, who will serve as mentors for new companies and leaders.
“This city ranks low in entrepreneurs and BizStarts is the first organization dedicated to that purpose,” Dalton said. “We have venture capitalists, dedicated to finding entrepreneurs to create wealth for their investors. Our job is to develop entrepreneurs for those venture capitalists.”
As an entrepreneur, Chang said BizStarts Milwaukee will meet many needs that startup companies in the region have.
“I can attest to the need for a one-stop shop for entrepreneurs,” she said. “The need to connect with each other, with the community and with investors is crucial to move forward, and BizStarts Milwaukee will give us access to everything we need. If an entity like BizStarts existed with I started Syslogic, I am confident that we would be even farther along than we are now.”

As a blog for Wisconsin entrepreneurs I could not pass up an article which equates marketing to fishing. I was “hooked” by the headline.

Advertising headlines are a lot like the elusive musky.

Fortunately – just like fishing pros use all sorts of “special tricks” to improve their musky-catching odds – copywriters use secrets of their own to consistently craft powerful, arresting headlines.

The full article can be found here:

5 Secrets To Compelling Headlines The Fish Of 10000 Casts

For all those artistic entrepreneurs make sure to check out:

Handmade Nation: The Rise of DIY, Art, Craft and Design

The movie is directed by Faythe Levine who own’s Paper Boat Boutique and Gallery in Milwaukee.

The Wisconsin Department of Commerce offers a very helpful toolkit for aspiring entrepreneurs. The kit is now available online. Toolkit

Sharendipity will be showing off their wares in the demo pit at TechCrunch50 tomorrow. I always enjoy to see Wisconsin companies making the trip out to San Fransisco. If there are any other Wisconsin companies at tc50 that I am missing please let me know.

Tech Upgrade, Inc has two new openings this coming month and we thought we  would share with the ‘Start Up Wisconsin’ Community.  One position is for students and the other position is for a more a more experienced applicant.

Check out :

Tech Upgrade Careers

Here is an entrepreneur interview video series made in Milwaukee:

ActionsTalk #5 - Comet Branding from ActionsTalk on Vimeo.

Visit Actionstalk.com for more interviews.

Here is another interesting group which meets in Milwaukee. The concept is simple:

Pecha Kucha Night, devised by Astrid Klein and Mark Dytham (Klein Dytham architecture), was conceived in 2003 as a place for young designers to meet, network, and show their work in public.

But as we all know, give a mike to a designer (especially an architect) and you’ll be trapped for hours. The key to Pecha Kucha Night is its patented system for avoiding this fate. Each presenter is allowed 20 images, each shown for 20 seconds each – giving 6 minutes 40 seconds of fame before the next presenter is up. This keeps presentations concise, the interest level up, and gives more people the chance to show.

Pecha Kucha (which is Japanese for the sound of conversation) has tapped into a demand for a forum in which creative work can be easily and informally shown, without having to rent a gallery or chat up a magazine editor. This is a† demand that seems to be global – as Pecha Kucha Night, without any pushing, has spread virally to over 100 cities across the world. Find a location and join the conversation.

Pecha Kucha - http://www.pecha-kucha.org/cities/milwaukee