Event News

May 05, 2013 | Post by: melissa No Comments

Governor Quinn, Mayor Emanuel Announce Successful First Year of 1871 Digital Startup Hub

1871 Community Generates 800 Jobs, $30 Million in Capital Investments and $13 Million in Revenue, Paves Way for Next Generation of Business Leaders

CHICAGO – May 3, 2013 – Governor Pat Quinn and Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s administration today joined leaders from 1871 – the first-of-its-kind digital startup hub – to release data showcasing its positive impact on the local economy. During its first year, the co-working center for digital startups in Chicago has generated 800 jobs and tens of millions of dollars in investment, while paving the way for future business leaders.

“The state’s investment in 1871 is already paying dividends by creating jobs, attracting local and national investment, and strengthening our state’s economy,” Governor Quinn said. “Fresh ideas and innovation are happening at 1871, and our state is benefitting from the creative forces at work within this community.”

“Chicago has as much momentum as any city in the country for developing a world class startup ecosystem,” Mayor Emanuel said. “The success of 1871 is a shining example of this community coming together to lead business innovation, create jobs and have a major economic impact.”

To pinpoint the tangible impact of the startup community, in April 1871 conducted a self-reported survey of the founders of its member companies. The study concluded:

800 jobs have been created by 1871 startups to date.
A projected 1,342 more jobs will be created in the next 12 months.
Nearly $30 million in capital has been invested into 1871 organizations.
1871 companies added almost $13 million in revenue to Chicago’s economy.

Operated by the nonprofit Chicagoland Entrepreneurial Center (CEC), 1871 offers educational programming, access to mentors and investors and other resources to help early-stage entrepreneurs accelerate their path to success. At 1871 today, 225 startups are building their businesses alongside one another at what has become recognized as the central address for the city’s burgeoning entrepreneurial community.

In addition to creating jobs, bringing capital investments to the community and contributing to the local economy, 1871 is the proud first home of Chicago’s next generation of business leaders. A key benchmark of success for 1871 is when a member company advances to the next stage in its business trajectory, outgrows the space at 1871 and becomes alumni.

“1871 has provided the density of ideas, talent and connections which has put us on the path to success,” said Liz Salcedo, an 1871 recent alum and founder of Everpurse, a fashion-tech company building products that empower women. “1871 was our launch pad.”

Looking to 2013 and beyond, the CEC is dedicated to making the 1871 experience even more impactful for its members and developing more connections between startups and local corporations.

“It’s been an incredible first year that has exceeded our expectations,” said Jim O’Connor, Co-Chairman of the Board of Directors, CEC. “We’re grateful to the community which rallied around us, including influential business leaders who have contributed their time and resources to mentor the incredible visionary entrepreneurs who flocked to 1871 this year.”

Governor Quinn has worked to expand innovation through entrepreneurship in Illinois, investing in emerging fields and supporting startups across the state. The governor was an early supporter and investor in 1871, and worked to help take the center from planning stages to reality.

About The CEC & 1871

The Chicagoland Entrepreneurial Center (CEC) is a non-profit organization that supports entrepreneurs on their path to building high-growth, sustainable businesses that serve as platforms for economic development and civic leadership. Its flagship project, 1871, fulfills CEC’s vision of a central address for entrepreneurs in Chicago. CEC runs and operates the workspace, develops programming, organizes events and ensures that the culture of 1871 allows entrepreneurs the greatest opportunity for success.

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Apr 23, 2013 | Post by: melissa 6 Comments

How Startup Weekend changed my life

Written by Daniela Bolzmann, WeDeliver

This past weekend I had the opportunity to participate in Startup Weekend for my second time, this time as a coach. My first Startup Weekend as an attendee resulted in a first place win and the decision to quit my job. Here’s why.

After relocating to Chicago from California, I had but a handful of friends in Chicago. I saw Startup Weekend as a fun opportunity for me to network, meet new people and finally pitch an idea that I had been itching to build.

I showed up, pitched my idea, and recruited a team (full step-by-step guide to winning startup weekend here). It was then that I realized, if I wanted to get the most out of the weekend, a strong team was more important than my personal idea. I then scouted the room, interviewed entrepreneurs with ideas that caught my eye, and ultimately landed on the team of Jimmy Odom, of WeDeliver (formerly WhyDeliver).

As Jen shared in this post, we did everything wrong and still came away with a first place win. The weekend came to an end and I agreed to help the team when I could because I was still busy with my full-time job. Little did I know that a few hours here and there would turn into nights and weekends. The team, the idea, the momentum kept me up at night and became all-consuming. As my priorities began to shift, I realized that building something incredible with this team is what truly made me happy and that if I didn’t go all-in at this moment in my life I would always regret my decision.

Now, I’m not suggesting anyone follow in my footsteps. We’ve chosen to bootstrap WeDeliver and with that choice comes its own set of hurdles. Ramen seems to be the meal of choice these days. What I am saying is that, as cheesy as it may sound, the stars aligned for me at Startup Weekend. I found my dream team with the right idea at the right time for the market. Startup Weekend truly changed my life, my team is like my family, and we are all going through this journey together.

In the months following Startup Weekend:

• 6 of our 7 team members are still with us from our original Startup Weekend team of 12.

• Made it to the final 30 in over 900 applicants to TechStars Chicago.

• A waiting list of over 50 top Chicago retailers eager to work with us.

• WeDeliver’d for Startup Weekend Chicago 2013 and look forward to sponsoring, coaching, and participating in future events.

• Our team mate Kirk is planning Startup Weekend Trinidad

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Daniela Bolzmann
@DanielaBolzmann

https://www.vizify.com/danielabolzmann

Daniela joins WeDeliver from the west coast where she most recently served in community and product marketing for almost 3 years at edtech startup, SymbalooEDU. She obtained her degree in entrepreneurship from California State University of Fullerton in 2010 and has successfully run her own online marketing consulting company, SocialSkoop, serving restaurants, retailers and the better-known Newport Beach Restaurant Association responsible for marketing over 300 restaurants in Orange County.

About WeDeliver

WeDeliver is an online platform giving local merchants an answer to the question, “How can I compete with large online retailers like Amazon?”

Headquartered in Chicago, WeDeliver is an on-demand delivery platform helping neighborhood businesses deliver to their customers. www.WeDeliver.us

Mar 13, 2013 | Post by: melissa 1 Comments

1871 startups head to the ANA conference

By Erik Severinghaus, founder of SimpleRelevance

Chicago’s reputation as an entrepreneurial powerhouse continues to grow.The informal 1871 Thought-Leadership tour continued in February with a trip to Miami. You may recall that in December SimpleRelevance, Rapleaf and Phillter-it went to Park City, Utah to talk to the Email Evolution Conference for a panel discussion about the future of email. Last month the climate was warmer and the content was similarly compelling, with 1871’s fearless leader Kevin Willer taking FoodGenius, 30second Mom, and SimpleRelevance to Miami to talk to the Association of National Advertisers (ANA) about how emerging companies are changing the future of marketing, advertising and content.This invitation was hard-earned. The ANA extended the invitation after being impressed by their visit and briefing at 1871 last year. This time they brought 1871 to them.

Spark Media’s Scott Hess got the event started with a fascinating look at the generational differences between millennials and their forbearers, and how that impacts brands and advertisers. Next, Kevin presented to the audience about emerging trends in entrepreneurship, how the new creative class is disrupting traditional industries, and most importantly how those in the audience can get involved in building entrepreneurial economies locally.

Elisa All of 30 Second Mom kicked off the 1871 presentations. She gave great context about her background as a serial entrepreneur (she previously built and sold iParenting to Disney) and how that informs her perspective on her current venture.

All detailed the importance of 30-second informative videos on a variety of topics and dropped a few hints about some exciting upcoming content partnerships she’s working on. 1871 is building a reputation as a hotspot for female entrepreneurship largely thanks to dynamic founders like Elisa.

Erik Severinghaus of SimpleRelevance stepped up next, with a survey of how big data is disrupting a number of industries from politics to baseball.

His message was a stark one – marketers, agencies, and the broader industry must either adopt to quantitative, data driven marketing or be relegated to the sidelines as the world changes around them. Erik detailed case studies of how data is improving email and social marketing.

Erik challenged the audience to challenge startups with ambitious problems, define metrics for success, and harness the energy of emerging companies to create value within their organization.

Justin Massa batted cleanup, taking the big data theme into the food industry.
Like Erik, Justin praised election analytics king Nate Silver of the 538 blog, then gave a detailed analysis of how data can be used to determine effective menu language, down to the level of how to describe the smoking of bacon.

FoodGenius is uniquely positioned for that type of analysis, analyzing half the menus in the United States! Justin’s presentation left the audience hungry for more information, and frankly, craving some bacon.

The 1871 foray to the ANA conference is just the latest evidence that Chicago’s reputation is growing, it’s innovators taking a step to the fore of the world’s technology stage and gaining recognition as a thought leader in digital entrepreneurship from coast to coast.

Mar 07, 2013 | Post by: melissa 3 Comments

Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer Visits 1871 Community

Chicago can teach Seattle a lot in terms of snow removal, but yesterday in a standing-room only crowd, Chicago entrepreneurs turned to a Seattle business icon, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, for a lesson in building not only great companies but also a thriving tech community.

Mayor Rahm Emanuel, J.B. Pritzker and our very own Kevin Willer all said a few words before the never dull Ballmer took the stage. The first half of his talk was an impressive litany of highlights Microsoft has achieved since the launch of Windows 8 last October as well as a cool show-and-tell of new technologies.

Then, Ballmer sat down for a Q&A with Rob Rutenbar, Bliss Professor and head of the computer science department at University of Illinois, and regaled the audience with early stories of Microsoft and sage advice for all startups.

(Photo courtesy of Vincent Cabansag, Starter League)

Startup Advice #1: Big Vision Helps

Ballmer shared an old college story where Paul Allen ran into the dorm room Ballmer and Bill Gates were in, and exclaimed to Gates “we have to build every piece of software for this machine.” The machine was the first microprocessor driven computer and was featured on the cover of Popular Electronics.

Never mind the fact that the machine on the magazine cover was the only piece of hardware of its kind. Gates and Allen built an environment to simulate and tool-ate. Ballmer pointed out this kind of simulation is much cheaper today thanks to tooling already in place, which brought him to his second point of advice.

Startup Advice #2: You Can Stand on the Shoulders of Others

By the time Gates convinced Ballmer to quit school and join Microsoft it was a 30-person company. Ballmer quickly figured out that those 30 people were doing the work of 45. When he approached Gates to hire 15 employees Gates replied, “ I didn’t ask you to drop out of school to bankrupt our company.”

Gates had yellow notes all over their apartment to constantly remind him how much money was coming in and going out. He never wanted to lose sight of the finances. This anecdote dovetailed in Ballmer’s obvious but important third point.

Startup Advice #3: Don’t Bankrupt Your Company

He reminded startups in the audience that, sure, they are there to make a popular product, but they are also there to keep in mind what happens with the money.

“We all know statistically what happens to most startups. Please avoid that.”

He went on to provide the recipe for success he believes all cities with great startups share:

1. They have great universities.
2. They are great places to live.
3. They have 1, or 2, or more big companies that have made it in the tech field, which helps fuel the VC funding.

When Microsoft was starting out, that anchor tech tenant in Seattle was Boeing. Perhaps Chicago’s future anchor tenant was in the audience for this very speech.

He closed by wishing everyone well and reminding entrepreneurs that even though there’s a risk in failing, there’s no real risk in trying because whether they fail or succeed they will be smarter, better, and have more opportunities moving forward.

Thanks to Heidi Lading, part-time marketing team member for writing this column.

Feb 19, 2013 | Post by: Caity Moran No Comments

StartupBus Chicago, this is your Conductor…

By: Ravi Singh (2013 Chicago Conductor)

Chicago has been given an incredible opportunity this year with StartupBus adding a Midwest team to the competition. Chicago is synonymous with hard-core work values and manufacturing the incredible. If to the world we are just a manufacturing center, then let’s step up and manufacture this opportunity. We aren’t competing with either of the coasts; we are competing against the world. Let’s manufacture the epicenter of a revolution of profitable and successful tech businesses that are recognized everywhere as the best. To get to that destination we all need to support our Midwest team’s bus.

It is in every business’ best interest to make sure we have a successful first run of the bus.   We don’t need to prove that we have the DNA to build incredible businesses – we already have the proof of that. Look at a few of the amazing things that have been built here in Chicago over the past few years with a small, but dedicated crew of developers, designers, and entrepreneurs.

The Obama For America team set a new standard for large-scale software development – they made a historic impact.
People worldwide come to Chicago to change their lives with classes from Starter League with a starting team of less than 4 people.
MNML set the stage for design with their award winning Kickstarter products and received the Smithsonian’s Cooper-Hewitt National Design Award for Product Design.
Think about the small, focused crew that built and run 1871.

These should all serve as examples of the great things we can build in our city. What all these companies show is that a small-dedicated crew of believers can manufacture worldwide success.

StartupBus is about building new and exciting businesses in a tight time frame. I guarantee that once you have coded, designed, and planned a whole business on a bus driving from Chicago to Austin for SxSW that you will look at every other project after that experience as doable.

In my life there are clear markers for things that have changed the path I was on, and all are Chicago based events. SocialDevCamp introduced me to Harper Reed who taught me about business and friendship in a different and better way. OrdCamp taught me that there are incredible developers in this city in all sorts of fields making beautiful innovations every day. Startupbus gave me similar experiences by introducing me to team members that have become family members and showed me what we all can do when pushed.

Last year there was no StartupBus from Chicago. Therefore, the bus I chose to work on was the one I envisioned would have the best and smartest developers and entrepreneurs – and that was the MIT Boston bus. But who would have thought that when I got to Boston and met the team on the bus, all the hardcore talent was from yes, Chicago!

If you love what you do, I know you will love pushing yourself developing in the dead of the night surrounded by the beauty of the country whizzing past you at 60mph. Every other development project after this event will seem doable and simple in comparison. Every time this past year I was scared about the duration and success of a project, it would hit me: “I developed 3 mobile app’s working 12hrs a day on a bus. How hard can this be?” It will be the prism you judge every other project after this through.

I leave you with this: don’t hesitate to apply. You have a chance to change the course of how Chicago is perceived worldwide. The insanity of working in those close quarters and the fun of sleeping in a different city every night and walking and talking about the product solidly for days before presenting in front of a huge crowd at SxSW, is worth the effort. And, the since this is our first Chicago bus, you have the chance to create a structure that is unlike other busses. Literally, you will get to write the rules you want for the bus. For all the “Office” or Star Trek fans, Kobayashi Maru it and make this bus a legend.

Dec 14, 2012 | Post by: melissa No Comments

1871 Invades Park City

By Erik Severinghaus, founder & CEO of SimpleRelevance

The Email Insider Summit in Park City, Utah is one of the leading conferences around the present best practices and future direction of email. Since 1871 houses a number of companies that are re-imagining email, it should probably be no surprise that the we had a lot of representation out there. While I was at the conference, however, I spoke with a number of participants who were struck by the participant and leadership of companies in Chicago.

First from the Chicago contingent, Andrew Kordek of Trendline Interactive led a 25 minute talk on 25 new email trends. Andrew is a long-time Chicago expert on the topic, having held positions running email at Sears & Groupon among others.

Most prominently, Toby Fallsgraff of Obama for America gave an incredibly well received keynote where he detailed the methods and results of the Obama email campaign. You may not know that they raised over $500M through email which undoubtedly had a huge impact on the election. Forbes recently published some of my thoughts on what marketers can learn from the campaign here, but hearing the details from Toby directly was absolutely awesome.

Next, SimpleRelevance was privileged to sit on a panel with Avi Levine of PhilterIt. The replay of the panel, “Evolution of the Email Ecosystem,” is available here where we discussed relevancy, big data, social, and the general direction of how email is being reinvented. Also on the panel was Automated Insights, a Raleigh based company that boasts Chicago based (1871 sponsor) OCA Ventures as a lead investor with Jim Dugan on their board.

After our panel, Phil Davis, the CEO of 1871-based Rapleaf, was on another panel that focused on Big Data and how it is affecting and will continue to change email. That lively discussion was really interesting, and is also available online. Incidentally, Phil and I recently recorded a webinar at 1871 on best practices for email with e-commerce.

It seemed like everywhere we turned there were leaders from Chicago driving the conversation and discussing disruptive innovation both current and future. As we Chicago-based entrepreneurs work for more recognition nationally, it’s important that we raise our game and influence the dialog not just regionally but around the country.

Erik Severinghaus is the founder & CEO of SimpleRelevance, an 1871 based company leading the way on developing next generation tools to help companies personalize digital communication. Prior to that he received a patent while in IBM’s IT Optimization organization, and helped co-found iContact – a leading Email Service Provider. In his spare time, Erik loves any sport that takes place in the mountains.

Dec 03, 2012 | Post by: Caity Moran 1 Comments

Startup Weekend 7 – It’s a Wrap.

By: Adam Haun, Lead Organizer, Chicago Startup Weekend

No Talk. All Action. That’s the Startup Weekend mantra, and it proved to be effective once again a few weekends ago at the seventh Startup Weekend held in Chicago (the second of 2012).

Things kicked off Friday night at Excelerate Labs in 1871, as Troy Henikoff gave a brief talk on his space, but more importantly, why his space is in Chicago. It was a great way to open our event, especially since 1871 played host to travelers from Pittsburgh, DC, Cleveland, Indianapolis, Champaign, Milwaukee, Iowa City, Omaha, Jacksonville, San Francisco, and Seattle.

Shortly after Troy spoke, former Startup Weekend winner, Mike McGee, gave some pointers to the participants on how to take on the next 54 hours. Mike shared some of his experiences from a few events back when his team took home top prize.

After Mike spoke, our Facilitator for the weekend – Startup Weekend Hall of Famer, Shane Reiser – explained to the participants how the pitching process works. Then, it was show time. Over 60 ideas were pitched from the participants, with 17 being selected. Teams were formed, and projects were being built.

For the next several hours, teams were building their MVPs, holding strategy sessions, coming up with business models, researching their market, and validating customers.

When Sunday night rolled around, it was presentation time. Each team had four minutes to present what they’ve spent all weekend working on to a panel of judges, consisting of VC’s, Angels, a CTO, and a CEO. Presentations were then followed by a three minute Q&A from the judging panel.

After each team presented, the judges determined a winner. Prizes were given away to the top six teams. First place went to WhyDeliver, a same day delivery service of purchases from local merchants, by people in your community. Jimmy Odom and team will now continue on to compete in the Global Startup Battle. You can read about their experience here.

The other five finalists who received prizes, in order, were Pix2gether, WhereFi, Patient Tracker, Givee, and SHESPN. For a complete list of presentation teams, visit this post.

A very special thanks to 1871, the CEC, and all of our amazing sponsors who made this event possible. I’d also like to acknowledge the awesome cast of organizers for their help and support. This remarkable event couldn’t have been done without the help of Mark Bertrand, Chris McKeever, Kit Mueller, Becky Rother, and our incredible facilitator, Shane Reiser.

Visit our site to learn more about Startup Weekend sponsors, judges, venue, coaches, and organizers.

Nov 01, 2012 | Post by: Caity Moran 6 Comments

CareerBuilder’s “Jobhack” weekend hackathon brought out over 30 entrepreneurs, developers, and designers to try and tackle joblessness

Last weekend, Chicago-area tech pros came together with CareerBuilder and 1871 to hack out solutions to the more than 12 million people unemployed. Given there are more 3.5 million unfilled jobs, despite unemployment, attendees were prompted to identify and start to develop solutions to match the right talent with the right company and to help empower employment.

The caliber of ideas and solutions were astounding!

There were more ideas than there were teams to execute (with one attendee literally continuing to pitch ideas to teams as he walked off stage). All in all, there were six final ideas presented to judges, including CareerBuilder’s CBDO Hope Gurion. Here are the winners:

Overall winner was PinJobs, a job-matching application based on job-seekers selecting images to capture preferences and connect them to promising opportunities, the team was led by the co-founders of Better Weekdays, a member of 1871.

Best use of the API was Open Circles, an app that uses a social layer to find jobs at your friends’ companies, then easily helps you get in touch to ask for an introduction.

Most viable product award went to The Pitch, a marketplace for nontraditional candidates to collect and pitch the skills and experience that make them uniquely qualified for a desired position. The Pitch team was largely comprised of Starter League students.

Of the three winners, at least two have current plant to pull the ideas through into full-featured web apps.

The judges from CareerBuilder were entirely impressed with the entire field of participants. As far as we’re concerned, the more people creating solutions to unemployment, the better off we’ll all be. And we had some great solutions developed this weekend.

Let us know your thoughts or questions.

Nov 01, 2012 | Post by: Caity Moran No Comments

CoFoundersLab Comes to Chicago

This is a guest post by Shahab Kaviani, Co-Founder and CEO at CoFoundersLab, the largest marketplace of entrepreneurs seeking a co-founder to launch or grow their business.

Over the last couple years, I’ve visited lots of startup communities to help integrate CoFoundersLab into the local startup ecosystem. My journey started in my hometown of Rockville, MD, in the Washington, D.C. metro area and has continued to other cities including Los Angeles, New York, and Boulder. I’d like to share my latest adventure to Chicago, where we kicked off our inaugural Co-Founders Wanted Chicago event, a free Meetup to match up co-founders.

Our inaugural event was held at 1871, and I’m happy to report that the startup scene in Chicago is alive and well. There are a number of other places in town that have made tremendous contributions to making Chicago’s startup scene so vibrant, but 1871 has done a great job pulling the community together in a number of ways. They offer workshops and co-working space, and have brought in many impactful tenants that help the community including Excelerate Labs, Founding Moms, Northwestern University and Starter League, all of whom we value as community partners and were instrumental in accommodating such a welcoming launch into Chicago.

A couple observations about what made our Chicago launch unique. Of all the cities we’ve been to thus far, no other city had as many people stand up and volunteer at the event to offer to help keep the CoFoundersLab torch burning. Our online matching platform and local Meetup events are free, so we rely on local volunteers to help promote, organize, and run the events every couple of months.

I was amazed and inspired by how many people sincerely wanted to join in and help the Chicago startup community. From my short two-day adventure, I got the impression that Chicago seems less fragmented than other major cities like D.C., LA, and NYC. By this I mean there are a few incredible resource sites, communities, and events that most people get behind such as Technori, Built in Chicago, and Entrepreneurs Unpluggd.

Geographically speaking, from talking with Adam Haun from MobileMakers, I learned that there’s River North (where 1871 is located) and the West Loop. It was so refreshing to hear Adam’s vision of trying to unite these two regions. Adam’s commitment and sense of singularity would make Brad Feld, author of Startup Communities, proud.

I also had a chance to meet with Troy Henikoff and Tony Wilkins from Excelerate Labs who are helping launch great companies in Chicago. My experience with Tony, an Entrepreneur in Residence at Excelerate Labs, was perfect; not only was he supportive of my movement, but he made an on-the-spot introduction to a great potential partner who was sitting across the room at 1871. These are the types of rapid synergies concentrated startup communities create.

I’m looking forward to watching Chicago become a major player in startup land, and proud to be a part of it!

In addition to the 1871 team and the other people mentioned in this article who were all instrumental in standing up CoFoundersLab in Chicago, I’d like to also give big ups to Jason Jacobsohn, Director at Founder Institute Chicago and Joe Abraham at BOSI. Oh and Joe, I’ll never forgive you for stealing my title as The Entrepreneur’s Biggest fan.

Go Chicago! Entrepreneurs Unite!

Oct 31, 2012 | Post by: Caity Moran No Comments

Brandery Chicago Demo Day

Originally posted on the Brandery blog.

On Thursday, Brandery will be traveling to the fantastic accelerator space of 1871 to host a pitch event for local investors. After garnering national attention and drawing hundreds to the Great American Ballpark for the official Brandery Demo Day in early October, we could tell that the crowds were practically screaming, “Encore, encore!”… And we can’t say no to that!

Demo Day Chicago will take place Thursday, November 1^st from 6-9 pm at 1871.

1871 is a startup accelerator located in the famed Merchandise Mart in the heart of downtown Chicago. This five-month-old tech hub, which opened its doors in May, has provided more than 160 startups with access to mentorship, advice, educational resources and programs, and office space to build their businesses. 1871 has made a name for themselves in the startup world and we are excited to partner with them for this event.

The evening will feature 10 of The Brandery’s 2012 graduates. Each company will have the pitch their company idea to interested investors and hang around after to answer any questions people have about their business, story and entrepreneurial passion. Attendees are invited to join us afterwards at McFadden’s Bar to celebrate what is sure to be another successful Demo Day!

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