Topic: Startups

Pathfinder sponsors the midVentures25

Bernhard Kappe, Monday, March 8, 2010 @ 9:37 pm

The midVentures25 event is happening this Thursday, and Pathfinder is proud to be sponsoring the event.

midVentures25 is the first Chicago-based startup demo day & conference: 25 of the best investor-ready early-stage startups will demo their products in an open-floor expo.

The top 5 startups will have a chance to pitch to an audience of entrepreneurs, VCs, angels, bloggers, media and Chicago's tech community. A panel of expert advisors will ask the tough questions -- ultimately choosing one company to win over $10,000 in services.

The focus of midVentures25 is to show the national technology and investment community that the Midwest has an abundance of early-stage innovators within the technology, consumer, and sustainability space. You can expect to engage thought leaders in education, art, media, business, science, and technology during the conference.

There are a lot of great innovations that continue to come from the Chicago community, as we know from the early stage clients we've helped towards success. We're looking forward to an event like this that brings the people that make this happen together. It should be a great evening.

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Startups, Software and the Vision Thing

Dietrich Kappe, Tuesday, September 9, 2008 @ 4:44 pm

If you can dream it, you can do it.

-- Walt Disney

You have a great idea, an idea that is going to transform an industry. You've turned a venture capitalist's head with your presentation and now you just need a software development firm to translate your vision into reality. This is where the trouble starts.

If you move in startup VC circles, you see enough of these deals go sideways or never get off the dime. Investors see hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars plowed into software development without a usable product or service coming to light. Fingers are pointed; tears are shed. For every success there are a half dozen failures. Why is that?

In my experience it all comes back to that word, "vision" as in "translate your vision into reality." What the heck is vision? If you've ever cracked a book on software project management (or just general project management), there's usually a section about having a project charter and a vision statement. As a young developer I would wince and turn to the next chapter. After all, I thought, isn't vision the same thing as what you're going to build? Isn't scope or, more basically, a list of things your are going to build, the same thing as "vision?" Why blather on in consultant speak about vision statements when a more concrete and practical project description could be had?

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