VFA founder Andrew Yang spoke with a collection of Wharton undergraduates at the University of Pennsylvania on Thursday night, and Nikhil Menezes of student newspaper The Daily Pennsylvanian penned an article recapping the event.  Andrew positioned VFA as an alternative to finance and consulting for those who dream of starting companies – and described its relative merits in both cases.  The reporter described VFA as, “A refreshing change of pace from the investment banks and consulting firms that tend to seek Penn graduates.”  Check out the full text of the article here!

Venture for America’s founder Andrew Yang, and board member/inspiration Charlie Kroll of Andera are featured on Forbes.com today!  Entitled “An Entrepreneur’s Big Idea to Boost Struggling Cities,” it’s a tale of how Andrew and Charlie’s search for fulfilling and exciting careers led them to entreprenurship and to getting involved with VFA.  The article includes nods to some of our wonderful 2012 Fellows (check out their bios to see if you can guess who:).  There are a couple little mistakes – the city of Detroit is not, in fact, paying for Fellow housing, and our Fellows are going to be doing a lot more than just making phone calls and getting office supplies – they’re going to be building products and businesses!  Follow this link to read this great piece written by Forbes entrepreneurship reporter Helen Coster.

Venture for America Company Spotlight with The Brandery located in Cincinnati, Ohio:

Founded by J.B. Kropp, Dave Knox, Bryan J. Radtke and Robert W. McDonald, The Brandery is a seed stage consumer marketing venture accelerator, which was ranked as one of the top 10 programs in the United States. The Brandery runs a three-month-long program in Cincinnati, Ohio that is focused on turning your great idea into a successful, brand-driven start-up. Started in 2010, they annually select 8 – 10 companies for the program, with each receiving $20,000 in seed funding, three months of mentorship, and the opportunity to pitch to angel investors and venture capitalists at the end of the program.
General Manager of The Brandery, Mike Bott, tells us more:
1. Tell us about The Brandery.
The Brandery was started out of a need to support local entrepreneurship. We found start-ups needed a place to get help with their ideas, as well as connect with other resources and mentors. With Cincinnati’s reputation as a leading branding and consumer marketing hub, we decided to focus our effort by helping consumer-focused companies. We have established great relationships with the leading branders and marketing strategists in the world to give our start-ups the resources they need to build powerful brands and experiences.

2. Name a fun fact about The Brandery.
The “tap” in the Brandery’s Tap Your Idea is certainly alive in the office. Both the Brandery logo and tagline were inspired by the rich brewery heritage of the area, and Cincinnati’s Christian Moerlein Brewing Co. ensures the Brandery companies always have a fresh keg on tap. And, it’s not just for the regular happy hours!
3. What does your ideal Venture Fellow look like?
For the Brandery, the ideal Venture Fellow is someone who’s interested in marketing and start-ups. They should be an outgoing, self-starter who wants to help build cool user experiences. Its imperative that they’re the right combination of an ideas person and someone who can drive something to completion.

4. What is the daily office routine like?
There’s lots of activity. Budding entrepreneurs with ideas, current and former Brandery companies, Greater Cincinnati business partners, mentors, investors, and potential customers come and go throughout the day. Some are scheduled meetings, some are just drop-ins. It makes for an energetic, collaborative and supportive environment. Epic foosball matches can breakout at any time – day or night. Brandery businesses help each other problem solve and have a good time. Definitely a high-energy place.
5. Additional thoughts and comments.
Applications for the Brandery Class of 2012 will be accepted from March through May.
To find out more about The Brandery:

Web: http://www.brandery.org
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Brandery/116938575027685
Twitter: @brandery

 

 

 

For Grads Seeking to Work and Do Good

By EMILY GLAZER

Ivy League senior Ethan Carlson recently turned down a job with a global-energy consulting practice and instead pledged to spend two years working for an entrepreneur, perhaps with a focus on renewable energy, in a struggling U.S. city.

“I want to make an impact not only on myself, my career and my finances, but also society around me, and my local community,” the 21-year-old mechanical-engineering major at Yale University says.

The project he plans to join, Venture for America, was founded by Andrew Yang, the former chief executive of Manhattan GMAT, a test-preparation company acquired in 2009 by Kaplan, a Washington Post Co.

Venture for America says it was inspired by Teach for America, which places recent college graduates at schools in low-income communities for two years. This summer its first crop of about 50 “fellows” will be placed at small businesses such as Drop the Chalk, an education-software firm in New Orleans, and Andera Inc., an online-account-opening firm in Providence, R.I.

The companies will pay participants $32,000 to $38,000 a year, plus health benefits. The program includes a five-week program at Brown University that mimics training for consulting and investment banking.

Firms with fewer than 500 employees created about 65% of the nation’s net new jobs, or jobs created minus jobs eliminated, according to the most recent Small Business Administration data.

The goal of the program, Mr. Yang says, is to help start-ups and early-stage businesses get off the ground, and its target is to create 100,000 jobs by 2025. The program has drawn commitments to donate services and about $500,000 in cash, he says.

Mr. Yang believes there is a disconnect between small businesses seeking to hire successful college graduates capable of wearing many hats, and graduates, like Mr. Carlson, who want to learn about the basics of starting a new company.

Fifty-four percent of the nation’s 18-to-34-year-olds either want to start a business or have already started one, according to a survey by the Young Invincibles, a group focusing on young entrepreneurship, that was funded by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, a research group.

Some of the struggling cities selected by the program have burgeoning start-up scenes but still need talent. Cincinnati, for instance, has a fairly vibrant consumer marketing and branding industry, partly because Procter & Gamble Co. and Kroger Co. are based there.At Andera, the participating fellow will be expected to work as part of a team to conceptualize a new product and to create a business case for it, says Charlie Kroll, the company’s founder and chief executive officer.

The Initiative for a Competitive Inner City, a nonprofit strategy and research organization based in Boston, Mass., estimates that 460,000 U.S. businesses are located in inner cities.

Jen Medbery, founder and CEO of Drop the Chalk, says the program will serve as a “professional recruiting firm, picking the best and brightest from the top colleges and making it affordable for me to hire and mentor them.”

Venture for America Company Spotlight with Bizdom U located in Detroit, Michigan and Cleveland, Ohio:

Detroit Recruiting and Development Leader, Maria LaLonde, tell us more:

1. Tell us about Bizdom U.

Bizdom U is an entrepreneurship accelerator that funds and mentors aspiring entrepreneurs to launch innovative, tech-based businesses that have the potential to scale. We’re a nonprofit that was founded in 2007 by Dan Gilbert, Founder and Chairman of Quicken Loans and Majority Owner of the Cleveland Cavaliers NBA basketball team. We’re on a mission to transform Detroit and Cleveland’s economies from being over-reliant on manufacturing to economies rooted in entrepreneurship and innovation.

Startups that partner with Bizdom U have access to the expertise and network of the entire Quicken Loans’ Family of Companies, which includes over 40 innovative, tech-based businesses in Detroit, Cleveland and throughout the country.

In addition to Dan Gilbert’s personal support, Bizdom U has received significant funding from the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation and the New Economy Initiative for Southeast Michigan.

2. Name a fun fact about Bizdom U.

You might find us frantically creating vegetables from Play-doh or tying up our team members in ropes on any given day. Don’t worry, it’s just one of our crazy team building activities. And, the winners usually win fun prizes, too.

3. What does your ideal Venture Fellow look like?

Our ideal Venture Fellow is ready to roll up their sleeves and use their creativity and leadership to add value to our Bizdom startups. They need to be obsessed with executing on ideas rather than just talking about them. Being as flexible as a ball of silly putty is helpful, as there are so many hats to wear in the startup world, you’ll think you own a hat store.

They’ll need passion for creating something that will add real value to the world, and the tenacity to stick with it when times get tough or uncertain. Their curiosity, passion and work ethic are more important than their experience. But, they’ll benefit from identifying their talents and using those to add value to the startups they assist. That could happen by offering their business development, sales, graphic design, web development, or industry experience, etc. And, above all, they are a team player, sharing in the victories and the challenges together and encouraging their team to make amazing things happen together.

4. What does the daily office routine look like?

Every day is different, and it can feel like a roller coaster ride at times. Here’s a typical day, if there is one at Bizdom: Grab a coffee, cold-call potential customers for an hour, more coffee, brainstorm on ways to increase your SEO, pivot business model due to feedback from current customers; find out that you were listed as one of Huffington Post Detroit’s Top 11 tech startups of 2011; compete in an impromptu hula hoop contest with your fellow entrepreneurs; freak out because your website just got hacked; avert disaster for free by reaching out to the Bizdom network of tech experts; more coffee; work til’ midnight making amazing things happen for your startup.

5. Additional thoughts or comments?

Bizdom U offers two programs to best fit the needs of budding entrepreneurs. The first is Idea Generator, an eight-week part-time program that gives them the tools to break down their idea, research it and turn it into a business. It’s a great option for someone that has an innovative, scalable idea and wants to determine if it is feasible.

The second is Launch Labs, a three month full-time startup accelerator where entrepreneurs launch their startups while receiving hands-on expertise and connections from our network and up to $25,000 in seed funding. At the end of the Launch Labs program, entrepreneurs are connected with multiple investors, where they have the opportunity to pitch for the necessary funding to take their business to the next level.

Bizdom U’s goal is to be self-sustaining while creating waves of entrepreneurs and new businesses, and a whole new buzz in Detroit and Cleveland.

To find out more about Bizdom U:

Web: http://www.bizdom.com/
Cleveland FB: http://www.facebook.com/BizdomCleveland
Detroit FB: http://www.facebook.com/BizdomDetroit
Twitter: @Bizdom
Cleveland Twitter: @BizdomCleveland

Check out the latest blog post from VFA Executive Board member, Alison Lindland. Alison writes about beginning her career after graduating from Vassar in 2000 and the path she took to becoming a full-time entrepreneur. She is currently the Director of Business Development and Marketing at Kohort.
Read her blog post here!

We had the privilege of heading to Las Vegas earlier this week to meet with Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos.com, and his team Fred Mossler, Zachary Ware, Arun Rajan, Connie Yeh, and Don Welch. As one of the many people who have read Tony’s book ‘Delivering Happiness’, I had been looking forward to the meeting for some time.

After seeing them in action, it’s impossible not to be blown away both by what Tony and his team have accomplished and what they are now undertaking. Zappos’s almost 2,000 employees are scheduled to move downtown into the old City Hall next year, but that’s just the beginning. Don and Zach are looking to incubate and launch more than 100 small businesses in downtown Las Vegas in the next several years to help build a thriving residential and business community. They’ve already occupied a floor of a beautiful downtown apartment building, the Ogden, with Tony and the team moving in. Tony has put out the word to everyone at Zappos that if someone is passionate about a business they would like to start downtown, let him and Fred know. The Zappos employee who picked us up at the hotel discussed meeting with colleagues and brainstorming in his spare time.

Perhaps the most impressive thing about the vision is its comprehensiveness and scope. Connie Yeh is tasked with building a new school downtown that re-envisions what a school would look like if you were to design one from scratch today (Hint: they admire the Khan Academy). Tony recently bought First Fridays, a non-profit arts festival that takes place downtown because they wanted to see it continue and take it to the next level to enliven the area. They are considering buying the local minor league baseball team – its stadium could soon accommodate Zappos employees on a regular basis. It’s all part of the Downtown Development project that has been christened “Sin City to Sim City” with good reason.

If virtually anyone were to tackle such a wide-ranging set of initiatives simultaneously, you’d have a hard time envisioning it. But having visited Zappos, you begin to see what is possible. Tony and his team have built a billion-dollar company by embracing people’s individual capacities and empowering them to express themselves. Tony, Fred, Zach, Connie and Don are clearly motivated and committed in the best of ways and bring a wealth of resources to the table. It’s hard to imagine a more fertile environment for breaking past molds and building a community from the ground-up.

Tony and Zach define their roles as gathering passionate people together and supporting them. There’s going to be a transformation in downtown Las Vegas in the next several years. And it’s open to anyone who wants to join in.