Written by Jenna Pugrant, 1871 intern

On Monday, 1871 played host to Ignite Chicago, the highly anticipated monthly series of TED-style talks aimed to set fire to a simple idea.  These presentations, which can be on any topic about which the speaker is passionate, are each five minutes long and are presented over the course of 20 slides that automatically progress every fifteen seconds.  For this iteration of Ignite Chicago, over 200 guests filed into 1871’s auditorium space to hear the 12 speakers give their two-cents on ideas they hoped to ignite in the crowd.

After some networking over pizza and beer provided by Tenth and Blake Beer Company, the night of far-ranging presentations began. Jill Howe kicked off the night with a talk titled “Ten Days in Zen Prison,” about the value of slowing down your mind to get ahead.   The night ended with author Elliot Greenberger on his upcoming book titled The Patron Economy and his quest to get companies to refer to their customers and users as “patrons.”

Some highlights in between Jill and Elliot included:

• Wedding photographer Eric O’Connor on reasons why running a marathon is the same as running a business: 80% of people fail at first, both in marathon running and in young startups. In a marathon and in starting a business, you’ll see people passing you – running faster, getting more funding, etc – but you must learn to focus on your own goals in the face of it all.
• Magister Freud, a self-introduced “Mad Scientist of Fortune,” spoke on the value of using “random reality” to guide your decisions. For example, when choosing which restaurant to eat at, pick three of your favorite restaurants and three completely new ones and assign each a value between one and six. Roll a dice and whatever side it lands on, go to that restaurant.
• Assistant Professor of Educational Foundations at Illinois State University Nicholas Hartlep gave a riveting talk titled “Demystifying the Myth of the Asian Model Minority,” in which he used a bit humor and an enthusiastic presentation style to expose the issue of stereotypes that affect Asian minorities in the audience.

From the aforementioned sampling of speakers, you can see the topics presented at Ignite, while certainly applicable, are not just for entrepreneurs – they’re relevant for anyone. Ignite Chicago is a perfect example of how 1871’s space is connecting and spurring innovative ideas both inside and outside of the Chicagoland entrepreneurial community.

Interested in attending the next Ignite Chicago or even being one of the speakers that ignites an idea? Check out www.ignitechi.com.

Sponsors for Ignite Chicago include:

1871

Justin Barbin Photography

Dietz MediaTenth and Blake Beer Company

Startup Weekend

Fear Experiment

Written by Rick Desai, Dashfire
Today, EverTrue, an education fundraising platform and one of Dashfire’s earliest portfolio companies, announced a $5.25 million financing from Bain Capital Ventures.  Headquartered in Boston, EverTrue was founded by Brent Grinna, a Chicago entrepreneur and a former colleague of mine at Madison Dearborn Partners.  EverTrue has grown with the support of some Chicago’s most influential investors: senior executives at Madison Dearborn and William Blair & Company joined New World Ventures, Stuart Larkins of i2A Fund, Brendan Carroll of Victory Park and Trunk Club CEO Brian Spaly in EverTrue’s seed financing.

This event is a reflection of Brent’s vision and leadership – having turned a series of wireframes into a venture backed business that solves real problems for educational institutions.  It is also an important milestone for Dashfire and a testament to our model to enabling startups.  And it falls just a week after we announced our Dashfire Launch, a startup program aimed at replicating what we have achieved with EverTrue, BucketFeet, Bloomboard and other technology startups.  Spearheaded by my partner, Kelsey Lutz, Dashfire Launch targets MBA students at Chicago Booth and Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management and awards the winner $35K in hands-on actionable services including business modeling, design, development, branding, digital marketing, and hosting to launch their startup.  The program’s goals are to enable non-technical entrepreneurs and showcase the power of collaboration in Chicago.

Enabling Entrepreneurship.  We’ve seen this story over and over.  Aspiring entrepreneur wants to build a company but cannot secure a tech co-founder or find a reliable team.  They revert to writing a business plan or pitching a Powerpoint.  This is exactly why we started Dashfire.  We partner with non-technical entrepreneurs, strategize on the business model, and provide software design and development to go to market.  #nomorepowerpoints.  Entrepreneurs can use their product to acquire customers, generate revenue, build a team, and raise capital. Business schools serve as valuable entrepreneur hub for us as they provide entrepreneurs the tools to accelerate their startups (read more here).  Notably, half of Dashfire’s partner companies were founded by MBAs.

Chicago’s Startup Community.  This is a viable community and we are proud to be a part of it. Thank you Groupon. Thank you 1871.  And to the Chicago isn’t the Valley comment, we say, it doesn’t have to be.  You can make movies outside of Hollywood and trade stocks outside of New York; innovation can’t be restricted to geography.   Accordingly, we work with startups nationally, but currently have 11 live startups that are based in Chicago.  They have all benefited from the collaborative nature of our city. Dashfire Launch allows us and our sponsors to reinvest in Chicago, collaborate, and continue to supply our eco-system with new ventures.

Applications for Dashfire Launch are due on April 8th.  The summer program starts in June and will last 10 weeks out of 1871.  We have already read some excellent applications and are excited for what’s in store!

Today we introduce a new video series featuring many of our fantastic CEC board members discussing their personal experiences and ideas on being an entrepreneur. Our first video features Genevieve Thiers the founder of Sittercity.com. Check back often for new posts weekly.

Last month, Andrew McNealy who runs Wayin in the Midwest (and 1871 associate member) called to let us know that Scott McNealy, the Chairman of Wayin and the founder of Sun Microsystems (yes, that Sun!) will be in Chicago. He wanted to know if we would be interested in hosting Scott for a talk here at 1871. Um, YEAH was our response. Absolutely! We’ve had some outstanding people come through 1871 in the past 8 months, but we were all in a bit of awe that Scott was going to stop by 1871 for lunch and a talk. I mean, the guy built an empire with technology that powers our daily lives, created 235,000 jobs and sold to Oracle!

The talk sold out quickly and 300 people showed up to hear Scott talk about what he did not learn in business school (Stanford) but learned the hard way building Sun. We were honored to have Rob Rutenbar, the Head of the top-ranked Computer Science Department at UIUC, come up from Champaign to moderate the session.

During the talk I looked around to see people in the audience taking notes feverishly, trying to write down every word he was saying. His wisdom in bullet points:

• Agenda Starts with Quality: Start every conversation and meeting discussing unhappy customers –  making sure your customers are happy is top priority.
• Buy on Spot Market: Don’t get locked into any long commitments – the market changes too fast.
• Have a Cause: Building a company is more than simply making money, it is about changing the world.
• Define Decision/ Communication Process: Everybody should know what they are responsible for and how decisions are made.
• Board Matters: Who is on your board will drive what type of organization you run. Choose them carefully!

As for learning from mistakes, Scott spoke about things we heard before but it is powerful to hear it from such a successful leader and entrepreneur. His message was:

• Don’t get “stiff-armed from attending staff meetings” – going to them gives you insight into how your team perform and the culture.
• Don’t get distracted from the core value prop of your business- it is ok to buy versus making everything in house.
• Fire bad people early.
• Be careful not to put great people in wrong positions.
• Don’t go public if you can avoid it (well, this was a new one for me to hear!). Going public changes the organization and your goals.

This guy is funny! From “my (now) wife walked into my office and saw my face on the cover of magazines and asked if my friends did that for me…She had no idea who I was!” to “Last time I saw Steve Jobs he was sitting in his garden, under a tree, barefoot, reading a book on How to Build a Nuclear Bomb”. There were pics of Jack Welch, Steve Jobs and Donald Trump. There was the Heisman trophy, facebook on NASDAQ and the beautiful Colorado mountains (Wayin is based out of Denver because of great weather, high quality of life and low taxes!).

Our friends at Blackline Review also did a great video of the event.

It was another outstanding Talks @ 1871 session and we were honored to have Scott here.

Last Monday, the CEO of Twitter, Dick Costolo, paid 1871 a visit when he was in town for a speaking engagement at the Economic Club of Chicago.  Dick is a great Chicago entrepreneur having started a number of companies – including Feedburner which was acquired by Google – along with folks like Eric Lunt, who is now CTO of local growth company, BrightTag.

We showed Dick around the space and shared a bit about the resources available at 1871 for the 200 startup members.  He connected with some old friends like Chuck Templeton, Steve Olechowski, and Matt Shobe – as well as met some of our partners like Mike & Neal from The Starter League and Maria from BuiltInChicago – and some of the CEO’s of startups working from 1871.  Hopefully he gained a new appreciation for all of the great momentum Chicago’s startup community has compared to when he was building Feedburner here.

We look forward to welcoming additional CEO’s to 1871 in the future from digital companies both local and from across the country.  Please let us know if you have any ideas or can make a connection.

We are super excited to announce a new program that connects 1871 startups with the amazing talent at Google Chicago. Google began as a startup in a garage and remains a startup at heart. They are committed to helping build a vibrant ecosystem for startups and enabling the next generation of entrepreneurs to be successful. So we have been working with them to launch a unique, three- month mentoring program that allows 1871 startups to leverage Google tech and marketing talent for advice on their strategy.

50 companies applied for the program and we just announced the first class of companies:

OurLabel is the fan-driven record label where music fans earn exclusive rewards for helping promote their favorite independent artists.

Live Local.ly provides conversation-driven mobile marketing solutions to small- and medium-sized businesses.

Sparkreel is a place where groups can share mobile video easily. Start groups. Shoot and share videos. Socialize with your group members.

Plura Financial is an online matchmaker between growing banks and small business seeking debt.

RavWare builds insanely awesome native mobile applications for any platform that are simple, fast, and clean.

groovebug is fusing the richness of box sets, the power of native apps, and viral potential of the social web to create a next-gen music experience.

Reprinted press release from 1871 startup CityScan

CityScan raises oversubscribed $1.2 million in seed financing

Serra Ventures and several top CEO’s back leading provider of street-level market intelligence CityScan

Chicago, Ill. (Nov 16, 2012)- CityScan announces that it has raised over $1.2 million in seed funding from an investor list that includes several CEOs and numerous venture capital and private equity firm partners. The new funding will allow the innovative startup to proceed with its development and nationwide expansion plans.

CityScan uses Mobile Terrestrial LiDAR technology to help municipalities observe the cityscape and proactively respond to changes that impact code enforcement and safety within their communities. The capital investment in this early stage Chicago company is validation of the company’s vision.

“Cities have a number of significant challenges and don’t have the personnel, technology or financial resources to solve them,” says investor Patrick Spain, former CEO and co-founder of the business research company Hoovers. “I believe CityScan brings the right technology and leadership to change that.”

CityScan uses massive image datasets and Mobile Terrestrial LiDAR technology to extract detailed street-level features including billboards, commercial signage, awnings, safety obstructions and road signs everywhere people drive, bike or walk. Regularly updated street level information can be matched against existing municipal records to help municipalities generate revenue and keep communities safe.

“Securing capital validates our business model and allows us to focus directly on implementing and expanding the business,” said David Guttman, CEO of CityScan. “We can provide a unique set of tools to help overworked and cash-strapped municipalities. The sheer volume of data a city has to deal with is nearly impossible to manage. CityScan is now poised to help cities by providing them with real, actionable insights into what is happening in their cities – allowing them to collect more revenue, properly and fairly enforce laws, and make their cities more safe and livable.”

About CityScan
CityScan is creating better ways for cities to make smarter decisions about street level features and environments, enabling them to increase revenue and improve safety. Through the use of images, Mobile Terrestrial LiDAR technology and other open datasets, CityScan empowers municipalities to accurately predict and proactively respond to changes that impact their communities. Established in 2011, CityScan is headquartered in Chicago.

###