Georgia Institute of Technology, the University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa, the University of Alabama at Birmingham, and the University of Tennessee-Knoxville may likely never become friends on the football field. But as research institutions, the four universities have come together to build I-Corps South, the southern regional network of the National Science Foundation’s Innovation Corps program (NSF I-Corps), a national program created in 2011 to train researchers to evaluate the commercial potential of their scientific discoveries.

The I-Corps South program initially started at Georgia Tech, but with the awarding of a $3.45 million grant, three other universities are now part of the network that will introduce research labs, colleges, and universities throughout the Southeast to the NSF I-Corps evidence-based entrepreneurship methodology and courseware, with a potential to reach more than half a million graduate students, and many thousands of the nation’s research faculty.

With the announcement of this partnership also comes announcement of its first program, Atoms & Bits, a six-week program for teams of 2-4 persons interested in commercializing research. The kick-off starts on October 24, at Georgia Tech, that will lay the foundations for building a solid business.  Accepted teams also have the opportunity to be qualified for a national cohort, which carries a $50,000 stipend to pay startup expenses and a fast track into the SBIR program.  Applications are still being accepted until October 14.

Clearly, the benefits for the academic institutions and those who are part of them are obvious. But such programming that bring specific curriculum that are more readily available to this network of universities have larger implications. For state of Tennessee, they believe the potential of increasing commercialization outcomes in each of the participating states can only benefit the overall economy.

“We will be working with the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and LaunchTN, our statewide public-private partnership focused on supporting the development of high-growth companies in Tennessee,” said Randy Boyd, commissioner of Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development. “This type of entrepreneurial training will encourage and grow an innovation ecosystem in this region enhancing commercialization and economic well-being.”

The post I-Corps South Cultivates Opportunities from Academia to Commercialization appeared first on Startup Southerner.

These past few weeks have been challenging for me, to say the least. My family and I experienced a house fire a few weeks ago. When it first happened, I tried to act as if I could still go on as usual because as a good friend of mine once said, “We don’t work from home, we work from Wi-Fi.” This means my work is wherever I am. Another reason I felt I could go on as normal is because my family is healthy and safe; and my home is not completely destroyed and is in the process of being restored. But you know what? About a week after the fire, it set in. That was a serious event and my life has been somewhat altered.

I was in the middle of setting up orders with vendors in preparation for a new product offering from My Color of Beauty. I was also busy with another side project: Mommying and More. These two were taking all of my energy and time. So, the house fire obviously threw a wrench in my whole game. The week after the fire as my family and I were settling into our temporary normal, I had to asses what was priority and how to move forward with it. I knew after assessing the situation, I had to press forward. Here are three ways I’m pushing past adversity.

1. Be honest with yourself and everyone else.

My workspace is at home on my kitchen table and sometimes at my desk in another room. Occasionally when I need a change in environment, I go to my nearest coffee shop. These are my comfort zones. At the moment, two of them are out of commission. Therefore, my “work” vibe has been thrown off. Yes, I work from Wi-Fi but I kick butt from home Wi-Fi. Right now it is hard to get acclimated to kicking butt from anywhere. I had to let my family know that I need space within our small hotel suite to do my thing. I had to let my partner/sister-in-law with Mommying and More know that I am off my game. I had to contact all of the My Color of Beauty vendors I had been speaking with a week prior to the fire that I needed to asses my situation and get back with them later. This seems simple but to me it just seemed like a failure to launch. I have been hard on myself and have had to often remind myself that this “thing” that happened to my family and me is not my fault.

2. Set up new expectations.

Upon getting real with myself and everyone else, I sat down with pen and paper to draw out a new plan to move forward with all of my new projects, which now includes restoring my home. While I had plans to have the new product for My Color of Beauty ready for sale in October and ship in November, my home is priority and I need it back in order to get this new product ready to launch. So, I pushed my launch back by a month to be realistic with what is now my circumstances. I also had to pull back on Mommying and More. I want to place more energy there but I physically and mentally cannot right now.

3. Keep working against the pressure – push forward.

While my family and I may be displaced for a short period of time and my startup is taking a hit to a new product launch’s timeline, I have to keep working. There is pressure and frankly it’s what motivates me to keep moving forward. If I had no pressure, my projects would probably never see the light of day. I believe every startup needs to face some adversity and pressure to have something to fight for and motivate everyone involved to want to win. Pressure can be healthy and challenging as well as help build character.

I am working to push past this minor setback and keep my head on my shoulders at the same time. By being honest with myself and others about what has happened to me and my family, setting new expectations and allowing the pressure to push me in a healthy way, I plan to come out on top. For anyone else facing any type of adversity, take it easy on yourself. Sometimes things happens that are out of your control. All you can do is adjust and push forward.

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It’s a tale of a startup life, told over two years as they pitch VCs, build teams, bring products to market, fail and start again. You may have lived this life, or have wondered what it all looks like.  

The documentary takes viewers on a global roller coaster ride from San Francisco to Mississippi, France and Vietnam. Along the way, it weaves in big-picture perspectives from investor Joanne Wilson; White House CTO Megan Smith; GoldieBlox CEO Debbie Sterling; and Ruchi Sanghvi, engineer at Facebook.

By the way, the five founders are all women, and the film was directed by a woman.

Here is the trailer:

And now, She Started It, the documentary empowering the next generation of female founders, makes its world premiere at the Mill Valley Film Festival on Oct. 8 and then will be on a screening tour that will include three cities in Tennessee: Memphis, Chattanooga and Nashville. In addition to the screening of the film, director Nora Poggi will also be in attendance for all of the events.

We hope you can catch this one-time screening, conversation and inspiration at a city near you. In celebration of the Tennessee screening tour, we will also be featuring the women founders who started it in Tennessee in the coming weeks. If you are a woman founder in Tennessee, please give us a shout at hello at startupsoutherner dot com.

Memphis | Tuesday, Oct. 25

Hosted by Geeked Memphis, with support from Delta Regional Authority and EPICenter
Location: Malco Studio on the Square
Time: 7:30-9:30 p.m.
General admission tickets are $10 available online.

Chattanooga | wednesday, Oct. 26

Hosted by the Jump Fund, with support from CO.LAB, Carbon Five, Miller & Martin, The Enterprise Center
Location: Chattanooga Public Library, 1001 Broad St., Chattanooga, TN 37402
Time: 5:30-8:30 p.m.
Tickets are free, but registration is required.

Nashville | thursday, Oct. 27

Hosted by the Nashville Entrepreneur Center and Startup Southerner, with support from Eventbrite
Location: The EC, 41 Peabody St., Nashville, TN 37210
Time: 5:30-7:30 p.m.
Tickets are free, but registration is required.

The post 3 Tennessee Cities Host ‘She Started It’ Documentary Screening and Discussion appeared first on Startup Southerner.

Mac Lackey is one of Startup Southerner’s newest contributors. Based in Charlotte, North Carolina, he’s founded and sold five startups, including his latest venture, KYCK, which was sold to NBC Sports. We’re excited to share his startup wisdom and been-there-done-that tips with our readers. But before we do, we sat down with Lackey to find out more about his entrepreneurial journey. Here’s what he had to say.

Q: These days there are plenty of college programs that teach entrepreneurship and then, of course, there’s the MBA. But you’re sort of proof that you don’t have to go that route to be successful. How did your major in psychology and experience as a soccer player influence you in your early days as an entrepreneur? And is it a good thing to have a background that’s not grounded in how businesses are supposed to work?

A: Some of the most valuable lessons I learned, the things that really shaped me, I learned on the soccer field. Soccer, or sports in general, are rooted in competition. They teach you to how to compete, how to have the drive to get better, the will to win, and to some degree the feeling of accomplishment. After you’ve worked really hard to master a new skill or work through a challenge you are having in your sport, then you get to go out and test it in a real game. If it works well you feel the rush of pride and accomplishment. If it didn’t work, you analyze your mistakes and go back to practice with the resolve to improve. That is startups. You have to have a will to win. It doesn’t matter if it’s raising money, building a new product, trying to land a key client or just surviving another 6 weeks on limited cash… the WILL TO WIN differentiates those who make it from those who don’t. The sports field is a great educator for entrepreneurs.

In terms of degrees, I don’t believe you need a degree in entrepreneurship or certainly an MBA. Actually I was meeting with a current MBA student recently who was asking how I valued an MBA and I warned him that I was opinionated and I may convince him to leave the program. Obviously there are certainly careers that require specific degrees and majors. You absolutely want your doctor or lawyer to have the appropriate classes, hours and degrees for example. However, for an entrepreneur, the value of school is much different in my opinion. Entrepreneurs learn best through experience. I often tell people the best way to learn is just to start. Don’t be afraid to make mistakes, just focus on learning quickly, iterating on things that didn’t work well and repeat things that do. To me college is about learning independence, learning to love learning (which means you need to choose and study things you are interested in), learning to be flexible, learning discipline (getting the paper done when your soccer team has an out-of-town match and you have a party you want to go to) and getting exposed to new things outside of your comfort zone. But to be an entrepreneur you have to just jump in.

Q: Having started five companies (and sold all of them) you’ve undoubtedly had your fair share of experiences, good and bad. Can you talk about one or two of the highlights of your career as an entrepreneur?

A: I’ve had some amazing experiences personally and professionally as an entrepreneur. It ranges from bucket list things (I’ve had the freedom to travel to over 15 countries in the past two years for example) to meeting my childhood heroes to never missing my daughter’s dance recitals or school events. So being an entrepreneur for me has meant “freedom” and control of time as much as anything.

In terms of specific highlights, my favorite was in 2000. My company at the time The iSoccer Network (or “internetsoccer.com” as most people knew us) was growing very quickly. We were the largest producer of non-TV soccer content in the world. We had a term sheet for a BIG investment from a NY-based VC group… Then the bubble burst in March of 2000. Nasdaq crashed, our company had virtually no cash in the bank and the prospect of raising capital was now bleak. With less than two weeks of payroll left in the bank I boarded a plane to Europe where three of our larger competitors were based. I had no scheduled meetings but knew if I didn’t get a deal done with one of them we would be finished. I landed in London and called the CEO of one of the companies, noted I was there and would be meeting with a few of his competitors but would be happy to stop by while in town. He confirmed a meeting. I called the others saying I had a confirmed meeting with X company but would be happy to talk to him before we sold the company. Long story short, I created a bidding war and sold the company for $15 million… and we had $8,000 left in the bank.

Q: Undoubtedly many of our readers will look at you and say, “Wow, he’s really successful,” but we’re suspecting that it wasn’t all roses and sunshine all of the time. If you’re going to build five companies, there are going to be mistakes made and lessons learned more than a few times, right? Can you talk about one or two of the biggest, dumbest, and/or most costly mistakes you have made as an entrepreneur? And what is your advice to budding entrepreneurs as they make their own mistakes? 

A: It’s interesting… I often think of myself as having only one or two talents and many weaknesses. Similarly, I have had 20+ years of mistakes and challenges, but a few good decisions. So to me being an entrepreneur is about taking smart risks, where you know there will be stumbles and mistakes but they will really be chances to learn more and faster, not disasters. So calculated risks… controlled experiments.

In terms of specific stumbles, one (of many) is worth noting. We had started an apparel company called Mountain Khakis and were working on our first product samples. They looked great. Our marketing looked great. Our brand was dialed in. And we sent our first pairs out to potential retailers and some early customers. The next day we got a call that after washing the pants were very wrinkled. We all rushed home and threw our pants in the washer and dryer and wrinkled was an understatement. They turned into a ball of fabric. We obviously had a panic attack (or more accurately, completely freaked out). In the end we made some changes to the fabric and everything was great… Mountain Khakis went on to be a fantastic company and the fabric was one of the real highlights, but we learned the value and importance of “thorough testing” from that experience. Now I try to imagine every possible use of a product or technology and stress test it before I show it to the world.

Q: From what we can tell on your website, you’ve sort of mastered the art of making journalists’ jobs very easy. What benefit has that provided to you? And what is your advice to other entrepreneurs who are trying to position themselves as thought-leaders, perhaps not in as broad a stroke as entrepreneurship, but at least in their industry or community?

A: One thing to realize early in your career is that journalists NEED YOU. They have a job to do, which is to consistently get out good news and information—interesting things, timely things, etc. This is not easy so they rely on others to inform them, educate them and make their lives easier. So it’s a perception shift… Instead of “I need your help, please… would like you write about my company” you should be saying “I have some really interesting information on new trends your readers would be interested in. I can send you some charts/info or answer any questions you have.”  Once they realize you can help them, you become a great resource.

Learn more about Lackey and find his resources for entrepreneurs at MacLackey.com.

The post #MyStartupStory: Mac Lackey’s Journey From Soccer to Startup appeared first on Startup Southerner.

Water and electronics don’t work well together, but the Nashville Mini Maker Faire is a rain-or-shine event, and it took place a few Saturdays ago. Despite rain falling periodically since the beginning of the event, almost all the booths were unperturbed. It does help when one of your exhibitions is a submarine.

But even that handmade, custom-built submarine from two makers in Kentucky was only one of many incredible exhibits. From the $15,000 second place Battlebots team, Bombshell, to the drone racing, to the 3D printed prosthetics, the Nashville Mini Maker Faire has pulled both a large crowd and innovative makers.

What is pulling them? The attendees didn’t solely consist of middle-aged techies already embedded in the community. There was a massive amount of people completely new to the Maker community.

Firstly, there were celebrities like Bombshell, who, along with BB-8 and R2-D2 bots, provide an entry point to being a Maker.

Secondly, there were tons of booths centered on teaching essential Maker skills, like soldering and construction, as well design and  prototyping.

It was a cornucopia of showing not only the products of amazing Makers, but the process of creating the complex projects. Check out this video for more coverage:

The post Thoughts From the Nashville Mini Maker Faire appeared first on Startup Southerner.

As part of bringing startup knowledge and investor attention to the lesser-known hubs of startup innovation, Paul Singh launched the Results Junkies Tech Tour. He’s criss-crossed the country, visiting cities like Helena, Montana, Lincoln, Nebraska, Knoxville, Tennessee, and Tallahassee, Florida. For his last stop in the South, he’s headed to Wilmington, North Carolina, and Singh’s event along with a host of other panels, mixers and opportunities for face time with real startup investors and mentors, are taking place Oct. 4-6.

Organizing all of this, of course, is Jim Roberts, the most dedicated and persistent startup supporter we’ve ever met and the founder of two startup organizations supporting Wilmington entrepreneurs—Network for Entrepreneurs in Wilmington and the Wilmington Angels for Local Entrepreneurs. Roberts recruited the Tech Tour to Wilmington by raising the $5,000 required to have a tour stop. He also lined up the 15 or so other events—some private, some open to anyone—taking place next week all over the city “in places where the entrepreneurs already work,” says Roberts, such as in co-working spaces, incubators and even a brewery.

Singh will be hosting a panel on Thursday, Oct. 6, called “Been There, Done That and Got All the Startup T-Shirts,” featuring local, experienced entrepreneurs who have been through the startup grinder—Jennifer Turnby of ChannelAdvisor and Spoonflower, Bruce Mancinelli of WebSurveyor, Jordan Cohen of Semantic Machines, and Tony Pease of GoodBookey.

There’s also a session for aspiring entrepreneurs, covering important topics like pre-revenue and gaps in the local startup ecosystem, including tech talent, involved mentors, and scaling after startup.

Roberts is most looking forward to what he calls the Aspirin event. It’s an annual opportunity for the area’s large employers to explain their five biggest pain points to a room full of local entrepreneurs who can then propose their “aspirin” solutions. “We have first-time entrepreneurs who are creating solutions without knowing if these solutions are for actual problems that local companies would pay for,” Roberts says. “So why not start by listening to companies that have resources and what they need.”

To help prepare attendees for this event, Roberts wrote this Quick Guide to Making the Most of a Unique Opportunity for Startups in Wilmington, NC. The title, at least, suggests this guide is specific to next week’s event, but the tips inside are relevant to any startup event anywhere.

“Thanks to our sponsors, this is a FREE series of events and now it is up to our startup entrepreneurs to be prepared to take advantage of this huge opportunity,” Roberts say. “We are eager to get our local and regional startups to understand the drive and sense of urgency needed to succeed in the competitive world of entrepreneurship. The ‘beach pace’ does not work when you are dealing with angel investors and venture capitalists.”

For a complete lineup of the events and to register, visit newilm.com.

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This weekend I had the privilege of attending the second annual Girls to the Moon Campference, an event for young girls and their caregivers that featured over a dozen speakers and covered topics ranging from astrophysics to puberty. The campference, which was held at Nossi College of Art in Nashville, Tennessee, is just one of the ways Girls to the Moon works to equip young women with tools to discover their best selves and inspire change within their own communities.

One of the sessions at this year’s campference was “How to Go for It: Starting Your Own Business,” which served as an interactive crash course in entrepreneurship. The session was hosted by Kerry Schrader and Ashlee Ammons, the mother-daughter team behind the mobile app MixTroz.

Girls and their caregivers divide into groups during the “How to Go for It: Starting Your Own Business” session at the second annual Girls to the Moon Campference

Schrader and Ammons kicked off the session by breaking girls up into groups of ten and assigning each group a business concept. The girls were then challenged to develop a basic business model based on the concept they were assigned, including an overview of how their company makes money, its target customers and its competition.

I watched as a hundred girls brainstormed their way to viable business concepts within ten minutes. Not only were these young ladies learning to work as a team, but they were also learning how to think like entrepreneurs.

These are just a few of the lessons they learned—lessons that may serve as a reminder to those of us just starting out on our entrepreneurial journeys:

1. Entrepreneurship doesn’t start with an entrepreneur. It starts with a problem.

This was something the founders of MixTroz made clear from the very beginning. “We didn’t start our business by saying, ‘We want to be entrepreneurs,’” Ammons explained before assigning business concepts to each group. “We started our business by solving a problem.” The problem a company solves can be just as important as the solution it creates; the more pain the customer feels, the more likely he or she is to pay for a solution.

2. Know what makes your company valuable.

We’re not just talking about money here; your value proposition is what sets your company apart from the competition. What makes your product better than the other guys’?

3. Know your customer.

Reaching your target market can be difficult if you don’t know what you’re aiming for. Identify your customers first, then shape your business to accommodate their needs. Don’t waste valuable time and resources on people who aren’t interested in your product.

The post Startup Lessons From Girls to the Moon: A Crash Course in Entrepreneurship appeared first on Startup Southerner.

Mark Powell’s startup story (and photo) courtesy of Tallahassee, Florida-based Cuttlesoft.

Mark Powell is the founder of Hwind, one of Tallahassee, Florida’s most successful tech startups, but his entrepreneurial journey is a unique one. Instead of as a sleep-deprived 20-something wearing flannels and flip-flops, Powell started Hwind after a long career in research and academia.

With help from the local startup community and several different support organizations, Powell was able to turn his research at NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) into a profitable startup that was eventually acquired by RMS (Risk Management Solutions).

How did he do it? Well, it took passion, patience and perspiration. Keep reading to get a sense of how Powell took his passion for meteorology and turned it into a sustainable business.

Be patient

Powell developed Hwind’s core technology himself. But since he was a NOAA employee, his brainchild was the property of Uncle Sam. When he saw support at NOAA dwindling, he decided to take the project private. The process of gaining control over the Hwind patent took almost a year.

He could have easily given up during that time, but he stuck it out. For entrepreneurs looking to put research into action and make their dreams a reality, persistence and patience are key, he says.

“It took about a year to get the clearance from NOAA,” he says. “They basically had to ask ‘Is there any need for the government to hold on to this?’”

Don’t get discouraged

At one point, Powell was pitching his company to mentors at the Tallahassee Entrepreneurial Excellence Program (EEP). Being new to the entrepreneurship world, Mark was practicing his pitch. After the presentation, one of the judges reportedly told him ‘“you shouldn’t be doing this.”

But Powell didn’t let the negative feedback turn him away. As they say in sports, he “fed off the boos” and pushed forward. If everyone you talk to thinks your idea isn’t a hit, it may be time to reconsider. But the lesson here is that you should never let a single critic kill your drive.

“If you’re passionate about something, there’s no one else who can substitute for you,” he says.

Focus on products

As Powell and Hwind transitioned from government research project to enterprise startup, the most challenging thing for him to do was to figure out how to take his research and present it as a marketable product. Mark could see the value of his data and predictive models, and so could numerous other organizations that used his research.

According to Powell, pricing the value of the data he collected and the service he provided was one of the most difficult parts of creating his business. In the end, he got creative and used previous research funding from private companies as a point of reference.

“I thought, if it’s that important to this entity, that’s probably a reasonable price for someone else to expect to pay,” he says.

Practice makes pitching perfect

As a research scientist at NOAA, Powell undoubtedly had to “pitch” his idea to various organizations to elicit grants and funding. But pitching to a group of scientists is much different than selling your idea to investors. Through EEP and Florida A&M University’s Small Business Development Center (SBDC), Powell was able to develop his skills and build a better pitch.

It didn’t happen right away, however. Powell talked about how he needed to practice pitching—sometimes on stage, sometimes to mentors, and sometimes to nosy coworkers—before he was able to to effectively sell his idea. Even if your pitch doesn’t result in a win, every bit of practice helps. You’ll get ‘em next time.

“That was a great experience,” he says. “I didn’t get funding but I wasn’t looking for funding. I was looking for practice.”

Build a network and leverage your connections

Powell’s path to success was paved with help from a variety of support organizations within the community in Tallahassee. Powell participated in EEP and SBDC to make sure that he was prepared for the challenges of building a business from the ground up.

In addition, Powell made sure he was plugged into the burgeoning Tally startup scene, and was a frequent face at Domi Station, Tallahassee’s first ever coworking space and startup incubator. It was there that he learned to develop his pitching skills and create a network of connections that he could use to help grow his business.

“Even if you didn’t have a relationship with a particular business, you still had a relationship in common. No matter what the business, you could talk to people and share ideas.”

Want more startup advice? Read the full interview and other startup profiles at Cuttlesoft.com.

The post #MyStartupStory: How Passion, Patience and Persistence Helped Launch Hwind appeared first on Startup Southerner.

Ever been to an idea festival? Did you know the concept—in the United States, at least—originated in Kentucky? In 2000, the first IdeaFestival was held in Lexington, with 2,500 participants in its first year. In 2006, the festival moved to its current home in Louisville. Since then, more than 100,000 people have attended the annual event that bills itself as a place where you can “think differently and share that way of thinking with innovative, like-minded individuals,” explains Kris Kimel, the event’s founder.

IdeaFestival 2016 kicks off Sept. 27 and runs through Sept. 30. We checked in with Kimel to find out more about this decidedly unique experience.

For starters, what is IdeaFestival?

“At IdeaFestival, we don’t do trivialities,” Kimel says. “We instead focus on big questions and ideas, that inspire, challenge and are sometimes dangerous in the sense that they are disruptive, often challenge the status quo, risky and transformative.”

There are no specific themes or tracks. Instead, he says, “IdeaFestival is like a puzzle with no predetermined final solution. We give you the pieces but it’s up to you to put them together in a way that moves toward a solution.”

He says the event’s attendees, who last year hailed from 11 states, are fundamentally curious and represent a variety of industries, age groups, and walks of life but share a mindset of embracing big ideas, creative thinking, imagination and entrepreneurship.

The event subsidizes 25 percent of its session seats. This allows high school and college students from throughout the region to attend.

“We believe it is our responsibility to share IdeaFestival’s visiting thought-leaders and influencers with as wide an audience as possible, providing access and exposure to Kentucky’s students who will shape our future,” Kimel says.

IdeaFestival’s impact on local innovation

As for Louisville, the event’s home for the past decade, Kimel says the festival’s presence is helping pave the way for innovation: “Louisville and Kentucky have many positive attributes that help define our community’s brand and image. Unfortunately innovation, discovery and bold ideas are not top of the list, reflected in a number of critical 21st century metrics. We believe that IdeaFestival, while not the sole solution, has evolved as an integral part of the region’s future growth, diversity and development, including among young people.”

“We also believe we are creating a call to action for local organizations and individuals to stretch, to grow, to remain curious all year long thus impacting our community’s culture and attitude,” he says.

Kimel says the festival has produced plenty of innovation-related success stories: “Our history has demonstrated that what emerges from this process is fundamentally unpredictable and often magical. Such outcomes include novel ideas for new companies, products or processes; the inspiration to quit your job to pursue a dream; a new (and perhaps completely unexpected) perspective on how to solve a difficult problem. We even helped foster a kidney donation—talk about unexpected!”

On this year’s agenda

As it is elsewhere, virtual reality will be a topic of concentration at next week’s event. Festival pass holders received Google Cardboards, and Kimel says there will be additional VR experiences throughout the festival. “Our hope is that everyone will explore and learn more about VR and how it is impacting not just gaming, but science, marketing, health and more,” he says.

At night, small groups will gather at local restaurants for a chance to dine up close and personal with presenters and other attendees. “No program or agenda; just casual, interesting conversation with thinkers, doers and makers from around the globe that fosters creative thinking and facilities new personal and professional network growth,” he says.

Sounds like a blast, right? There’s still time to register, and your ticket could come with a 10 percent discount by using the promotion code SAVE10. Can’t make it next week? The organization has expanded its signature, one-day event into a year-round program with smaller, audience- and industry-specific events held around the state.

The post ‘Embrace the Danger of New Ideas’ at IdeaFestival appeared first on Startup Southerner.

The second annual Girls to the Moon campference is coming up on Saturday, September 24, at Nossi College of Art, and we’re excited to be one of the community partners of this event. In the spirit of Girls to the Moon’s encouragement to try new things, we decided to do something we’ve never done before: a preview flipbook about the upcoming event.

As of Tuesday, limited number of tickets are still available.  We hope to see you there!

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