The South is synonymous with many things, an unfortunate one being poor health. Except for Florida and North Carolina, all of the states in the South consistently rank as the unhealthiest in the country. Unfortunately, diabetes and obesity are as common in our region as sweet tea and fried chicken. But there’s a Kentucky-based startup that’s trying to do something about it. RocketHealth, founded by a Lexington, Kentucky-based ER doctor, is a health technology company focused on population health improvement and patient engagement.

With an early focus on diabetes, RocketHealth’s proprietary technology is being used every day by nearly 4,000 people with diabetes. When they take their blood glucose readings with connected blood sugar meters, that information is delivered seamlessly to pharmacists and other members of their healthcare team to automate delivery of diabetic testing supplies and enable real-time interventions.

Dr. Jeremy Corbett

“RocketHealth launched with diabetes as our core aim, primarily due to the fact that diabetes spend is out of control and expected to double over the next decade,” says RocketHealth founder Dr. Jeremy Corbett. “In addition, diabetics don’t surprise us. They’re out to dinner, forget their insulin, and their blood sugar skyrockets before presenting at the ER with diabetes-induced hyperglycemia. Or, they wake up on a empty stomach with a glucose level of 54. They are dizzy, disoriented, and without anyone at home to help. Another ER visit. By democratizing connected medical devices and empowering best-in-class behavior change specialists with real-time biometric data, RocketHealth believes we can predict—and ultimately change—the future.”

This is not Corbett’s first foray into entrepreneurship.

“I always wanted to be a physician because I believed medicine provided an opportunity to change lives in ways other professions can’t. It wasn’t until I began my residency that I realized my reach wasn’t going to be as large as I desired, and I began transitioning out of full-time medicine and into the larger healthcare space,” he says. “Being an entrepreneur enables me to use my gifts to reach thousands more people on a daily basis than I see in the emergency room.”

Clinicians turned entrepreneurs is not all that uncommon. And in fact, they can bring a lot to the table for healthcare innovation. But Corbett says it’s not always easy when clinicians make this kind of leap.

“Doctors like me obviously have a leg-up on the competition in terms of our clinical knowledge, but we also face an incredibly steep learning curve as it relates to running a business, raising capital and networking,” he says. “That said, I find most physicians to be incredibly patient. Their entire lives are predicated on delayed gratification, which I believe is a great foundation for growing a business. Patience and hard work are prerequisites, and these are character traits most doctors have in spades.”

Despite RocketHealth not being his first startup, Corbett says there have still been challenges in launching his latest venture.

“Early on, I failed to appropriately gauge the amount of time required to truly DO what we created RocketHealth to do,” he says. “Accordingly, I failed to bring others on board until we were already falling far behind our product roadmap metrics and were in jeopardy of losing clients. My second hire was the best I’ll ever make and immediately righted the ship.”

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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.

Among one of the most important planning movements of the last 50 years, New Urbanism has found much of its success in the South. This movement centers around traditional neighborhood design, creating a sense of community through mixed-use development that incorporates diverse price points, while integrating beautiful streets and structural standards with commercial conveniences.

Baldwin Park (Orlando), Birkdale Village (Charlotte), Daniel Island (Charleston, South Carolina) have been some of the most notable communities in the Southeast that have achieved success not only in residential development, but also in attracting commerce. Most recently some are also attracting startups.

While dense urban cores still dominate the startup space, New Urbanism is offering another option for the region. Their plans encourage neighborly, in-person interactions, which are becoming more important in an era of impersonal connectivity.

While many urban areas are experiencing unprecedented housing affordability crises, New Urbanism can help recreate density—oftentimes at lower costs and with modern convenience. Varied housing types and price points bring people from diverse backgrounds, cultures and incomes into real contact. Civic bonds are formed in a walkable environment. Shared spaces encourage inclusion rather than exclusion.

Norton Commons, where I serve as general counsel and marketing director, encompasses a 600-acre plan in northeast Louisville, and has matured into one of the most successful New Urbanist communities in the South. By the close of 2016, the community, which is just a little over a decade in age, will be home to more than 1,000 residences, three schools (including a new public elementary) and dozens of parks, playgrounds, pools, bike paths and green spaces. Roughly 50 percent of the 60+ business owners in the community are residents. The overwhelming majority of them are independent businesses, such as lawyers, writers, artists, engineers, boutique-owners and restauranteurs.

Cutting-edge infrastructure investments continue to be a top priority in attracting development. The community has invested heavily in eco-friendly energy efficient geothermal technologies, which bring big savings to residents and businesses. In fact, Norton Commons is soon set to become one of the largest geothermal communities in the United States. AT&T and other telecoms are quickly deploying gigabit fiber throughout the South, and our community is one of the first in the region that can boast of speeds rivaling larger urban cores.

Lucina Health, a new startup that uses aggregated data and obstetrics analytics to help reduce preterm birth rates, recently located in the community in March. The company is building out its staff of 15 and has the potential to invest up to $3.5 million in the Louisville area over the next several years. The startup cited the health-conscious, multi-generational environment in Norton Commons as aligning perfectly with the mission of the company. Lucina was just the latest addition to the emerging health tech cluster: Care Innovations opened an IT and health product innovation center in Norton Commons in 2015.

As the South continues to develop and attract new talent, look for New Urbanist communities to be right in the thick of things in the quest for startup locations. The easy accommodation of expansions places these communities in a far better position to allow startups to thrive and scale-up.

Marilyn Osborn Patterson is General Counsel and Marketing Director for Norton Commons, a New Urbanist development in northeast Louisville.

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Since 1975, the regional Small Business Development Center in America’s SBDC Network is one resource that many first-time entrepreneurs all across the country have utilized or at least considered making a stop. Harnessing its partnerships with private enterprise, government agencies, higher education institutions and local nonprofit economic development organizations, their mission for their 1000 or so centers for the last 36 years has been and still is to educate and strengthen small businesses.

David Oetken, center director at Louisville SBDC

Since 1982, Louisville Small Business Development Center has been serving their area as a part of the Kentucky Small Business Development Center network. And beyond the typical services one might think are offered at the SBDC, the team of four, under the leadership of David Oetken, has been innovative in creating programming and guidance fit for the needs of their area. This fall, this team’s efforts will be honored at the national conference with the 2016 Sutton Landry State Star for Kentucky, an award that recognizes outstanding performance and commitment in serving Kentucky’s small businesses.

Oetken, who has owned, operated, and sold several successful businesses prior to his work at the Louisville SBDC, talked with us about the programs that are especially popular, finding money to grow businesses, and what makes the Southeast special.

What are some of the actions that Louisville SBDC is taking that you believe contributed to the center’s success? Are there any specific programs that are particularly popular at your center?

The Louisville SBDC has also been recognized for our efforts in educating the public about our services. We are serving a real purpose when so much of the startup business discussion often is focused on unlikely scenarios that aren’t going to be available to most people. Not everyone is going to get a “Shark Tank,” opportunity, but with the right skills and access to capital, startups and scale-ups will flourish.

You serve several counties well outside of Louisville.  I’m thinking that the types of services you offer to the counties vary depending on what’s available for each area.  What are some of the challenges that come with that?
We serve nine counties around the Greater Louisville area, from a fairly large urban center to fast-growing white collar counties, to rural areas.  Louisville is a logistics hub, so we counsel on a number of opportunities in that area.  Inventory control is often crucial there, and we teach best practices.  In more rural areas, we have focused on building out main street businesses in smaller towns, helping with online ratings sites and a strong digital presence.

Coming back to food again, there are a lot of opportunities for rural areas to play a bigger part in the local food movement.  Often these areas are producers, but not necessarily strong marketers and processors.  We’ve helped conduct market research, business planning, and loan packaging for some game-changing new facilities that are having a big impact in rural economic development.

The one constant is solopreneurs in all areas. Financial modeling, business planning, and access to new financing are always a need.

Why should those of us just starting out in their entrepreneurial journey visit a SBDC? What are some of the services that you offer that not many are aware of?
There’s a lot of good ideas out there, but the execution is often poor.  It’s definitely new and unchartered territory for many people.  We offer the basic and advanced training on the real mechanics — the “blocking and tackling” of business.  It might not be the sexy topic right now, but it’s usually what divides the winners from the losers.

Our primary mission is to entrepreneurs find money to start or grow their business. The business plan is NOT DEAD. The Louisville SBDC works one-on-one with business to make the best possible presentation. Good loan packages for traditional banks & SBA loans are still valuable tools and besides self-financing, or borrowing from family & friends, business loans are the general means by which businesses are launched. Venture funds usually get all of the focus, however. We can help with non-traditional funding through various national sources.  Locally, KIVA crowdfunded loans have been great for entrepreneurs.

How are small businesses and guidance of them particularly important in the Southeast? Why are you passionate about this area?
Culture is different in the Southeast.  There’s a much more collegial environment that’s open – and friendly competition for the most part.  You don’t often see that in other regions of the country. There’s collegiality about the region.  You see employers assisting their own employees with building their own businesses.  That’s very special.

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Sara Day Evans, Founding Director of Accelerating Appalachia

Chances are when you hear the words “accelerator program” or “entrepreneurship,” the first thing that comes to mind is not “Appalachia.” But that’s something Sara Day Evans, founding director of Accelerating Appalachia, hopes to change.

Evans is a geologist who has been living and working in Appalachian communities for most of her life. She spent her early childhood in North Carolina, Kentucky and southwest Virginia. “Growing up there really influenced my connection to nature,” she says. “I’ve always been interested in geology since I was a kid collecting rocks and fossils and shark teeth.” At 19, Evans traveled to the Grand Canyon, where she solidified her decision to study geology in college.

Evans joined a water protection group in Missouri while working toward her degree. And after graduation, she spent 13 years working for the state of Kentucky to help build their groundwater and waste management programs. But that’s when her interests took an unexpected turn.

“I was really drawn to local economies,” Evans says, “especially after working across Appalachia for so long. A lot of what I was doing was managing a program to clean up and institute recycling and waste reduction. But what about the economy?” she asks, “ Why are the environment and the economy viewed as separate?”

When she moved to Asheville, North Carolina in 2006, Evans finally witnessed the connection she had been seeking between local economies and the environment. “I started seeing small businesses in the sectors of food, farming, forest products, fiber,” she says, “And I was so inspired by their work. And they were working with the biodiversity and agrobiodiversity of the region.”

Evans continued her work with the state of North Carolina for four years. However, after a government turnover in 2010, the program she worked for was cut and she was left unemployed. It was during this transitional period that Evans began to explore the realm of social enterprise.

“I had friends in the entrepreneurial world who told me, ‘You work like an entrepreneur anyway, you should be exploring this,’” she recalls, “There were people in the Asheville region who were working globally on social enterprise, and they really helped introduce me to that world.”

Evans started a consulting firm called Prosperity Collective, but within six months, another idea for a nonprofit organization began to take form. After a lot of research—and with the help of her colleagues Jennifer Flynn, Kimberly Hunter and Dayna Reggero—Evans created Accelerating Appalachia, the first nature-based business accelerator of its kind.

Accelerating Appalachia is an accelerator program for seed-stage businesses in nature-based industries such as farming, food, clean energy, textiles and more. The program’s intensive curriculum instructs entrepreneurs in subjects like financial planning, value proposition improvement, supply chain development and advisement on capital raising options.

“We’re focusing on businesses that support farming and other regenerative land practices, practices that farmers use that actually help to restore and regenerate the soil,” Evans says. “Regenerative agriculture is blowing up, because data is starting to come back about how much the right kind of agriculture practices can sequester carbon and have a huge impact.”

Accelerating Appalachia, 2016 Cohort

Despite the fact that Accelerating Appalachia focuses on nature-based enterprises like farming, Evans says over 75% of participating enterprises are either women-led or co-led.This is because, “Women-led enterprises are very profitable but way under-capitalized.” But Evans adds that Accelerating Appalachia’s diversity goes far beyond gender. “We seek to not just accelerate women-led businesses, but also minority and indigenous populations,” she explains.

Regardless, Accelerating Appalachia remains committed to one thing: creating harmony between economy and environment. “Our focus is to create a few good jobs because that’s important for our economy,” Evans says, “and then build that connection to regenerative agriculture.”

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The hardest part of owning a startup is always the beginning: the process of turning your idea into a company with a working business model and appropriate funding. Luckily, there is a multitude of accelerator programs in the South available to entrepreneurs who want to launch their startups quickly.

At the northern tip of Kentucky where two rivers, the Ohio and the Licking, meet sits the city of Covington. While the city’s population is around 40,000, UpTech, an accelerator for data-driven startups, has been steadily gaining more attention. The applicants to last year’s cohort spanned the globe, and they expect to see this international attention continue as they finish up accepting applications for their fifth UpTech cohort on June 26.  

JB Woodruff, UpTech managing director

The UpTech accelerator program, under the leadership of JB Woodruff, offers the selected startups some of the usual set of program perks, such as working space, mentoring and beverages. But there are several differentiating parts to this program, ranging from a six-month schedule and a geographic location that allows for the community to take advantage of several startup movements in two states.

Just before a run to two events, JB Woodruff talked with Startup Southerner about UpTech’s accelerator model, the benefits of their location, and an interesting but regionally appropriate program partner.

You run a tech accelerator program for data-driven startups. What exactly is a data-driven startup?  A data-driven startup is one that believes that the efficient capture, analysis and usage of data is necessary to make informed and vital business, product and customer decisions. We take this one step further with our startups by emphasizing the importance that this same value can be passed onto their customers in the form of a differentiated offering by service or product. This second item isn’t required for entrance into our program; however, we use it in our evaluation criteria knowing the value it brings in making a company investable.  

Why does such a program exist in Covington, Kentucky? And how is it also connected to what is going on in Ohio, or more specifically, Cincinnati? UpTech was founded with the goal of revitalizing the region through the creation of an information-based economy cluster. We’re well on the way to achieving this goal and continue to work closely with our partners at the Kentucky Innovation Network, Cintrifuse and regional universities; among many other partners.

UpTech was founded in Kentucky and is proud of that differentiating fact due to the KY Tax credit programs offered as well as the connection with the Kentucky Innovation Network. However, being a river city, we recognize that we’re also proudly a part of the #StartupCincy movement. Our drive is to create investable companies and that means we have to partner with groups all over the country to make this possible.  

I like that say that Covington is Cincinnati’s Brooklyn and we have the bridge to match (Roebling Suspension bridge).  

One of the differentiating components of UpTech is its program length. Do you believe that your 6-month approach to the length of the accelerator has helped the startups? I know that the 5+1 month approach works. Having worked at 2 accelerators, over 4 programs and in 3 countries, I know that a post program ‘cliff effect’ is real and felt by startups.  The +1 is all about supporting the founders and making the transition to post program as smooth as possible. I know it’s working because of the overwhelmingly positive feedback from founders and the community.

Who are some of the UpTech alumni? Successes have been Tixers and Travel Notes with their acquisitions. Citilogics is now in multiple municipalities across the country with a promising customer/revenue pipeline. We’re seeing great things from our 4th cohort and hope to report more success stories there in the near future.

I did notice that you have an official distilling partner. That’s so…Kentucky.  The distillery partner was born from the notion that we’re a KY-based accelerator, why don’t we have bourbon? We could have hit up the big guys near Lexington, but wanted to work with a local partner. New Riff is an up-and-coming distillery and we wanted to help them as well as continuing to find more unique differentiators in our program.

Photos provided by UpTech

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Kela Ivonye is the co-founder and CEO of Arrow Food Couriers, a hyper-local multi-restaurant food delivery service in Louisville, Kentucky. He is also involved with a startup called MailHaven, a service that provides safer, more convenient local package delivery. Ivonye has his own blog, which features insightful information about his experience in the startup world. But we decided to dig deeper into his story to discover the inspiration behind Arrow Food Couriers, the challenges he faces as an entrepreneur and his plans for the future.

Q: Where are you originally from? What inspired your decision to move to Louisville?

A: I was born in Lagos, Nigeria and I moved to America 11 years ago, specifically Little Rock, Arkansas, before I relocated to Louisville. My late father—who was also a technology entrepreneur—got both his degrees in America, and I always knew I wanted to come over to the United States to go to school.

Q: What sparked the idea for Arrow Food Couriers?

A: While in graduate school, I was a graduate intern at several labs, and I also waited tables at a small restaurant. I noticed the restaurant was not making enough money from sit-ins and takeout; however, they had customers who wanted to have food delivered, and there was no means to do it. There was a multi-restaurant delivery company already in the city, but they charged exorbitant prices, took over an hour to deliver on average, and had a 1.5 star rating on Yelp. I saw an opportunity in the market and decided to go for it, adding our own spin of environmental awareness, which has gotten us recognized by the United Nations Climate Change Secretariat as a Climate Neutral Now Champion Company.

Q: How is Arrow Food Couriers currently growing and changing?

A: Arrow Food Couriers had a lofty goal of expanding across the United States; however, we reassessed our position in the market and the availability of—and our access to—capital, and we decided to focus on a relatively virgin market where our lead investor resides. We will keep supporting our Louisville operations, but focus on increasing our development team and software assets in anticipation of a launch in a foreign country at the end of the year.

Q: Where do you hope to be in five years?

A: I see myself being at the forefront of hyper-local logistics technology, and developing physical infrastructure for the future of commerce, setting the precedent for what I refer to as “fluid commerce.”

Q: What has been your biggest mistake—or lesson learned—in the process of starting your own company?

A: Being headstrong, allowing my passion for environmental technology to cloud my judgment, thereby overshadowing the primary tenet of a business: achieving profitability for the value we create.

Q: Have any tips for entrepreneurs like yourself?

A: You are your worst enemy, no one else is. Conquer your demons, make the best use of your time. Don’t accept failure, accept learning lessons. When your success is temporarily impeded by your own mistakes, place yourself in the best position to learn and succeed.

The post Learning From Experience: A Q&A With Kela Ivonye appeared first on Startup Southerner.