RMVCA Hosts One Day Entrepreneur Bootcamp

RMVCA and Silicon Flatirons invite you to join us for a One Day Entrepreneur  Bootcamp in Boulder, Colorado for entrepreneurs, business owners, start-up company managers and people thinking about starting up their own businesses.

Bill Joos, principal of Go To Market Consulting, based in California’s Silicon Valley will moderate the discussions.   Bill works with early stage start-ups, venture capital firms and their portfolio clients.  He spent over 6 years as the VP of Entrepreneur Development at Garage TechnologyVentures, an early stage venture capital firm that he co-founded with Guy Kawasaki.   Bill has worked with early-stage high technology start-ups helping them polish and clarify their messages and refine their fund-raising and customer presentations.  He has also mentored and coached them in go-to-market strategies, revenue and pricing optimization, business alliances, business development, partnerships and marketing.

Event Agenda

8:00am               Registration Opens

8:30am                Preview of the Day

8:45am                Top Ten Mistakes Made in Business Plans

9:45am                Perfecting Your Positioning

11:15am              Break

11:30am              Perfecting Your Pitching

1:00pm               Lunch    (Boxed lunches available on the 2^nd floor)

2:00 pm               The Power of an Advisory Board (a Tale of Two Boards)

3:00pm                Local Heros Panel Discussion

4:00pm                Bootcamp Concludes

More about our Local Heros:

Occipital, LLC,  Jeff Powers, Co-Founder

Jeffrey Powers was a PhD student at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, but left early to start Occipital after realizing that the fastest way to make an impact was to start a company.  While in Ann Arbor, he led a robotics research project involving autonomous flying blimps, he was actively involved and elected president of the engineering honor society Tau Beta Pi, helped build a collaborative filtering engine at Xanga.com, and spent two summers as an intern at the National Security Agency in Maryland.  Jeff arrived in Boulder with co-founder Vikas Reddy after Occipital was admitted to the TechStars program in 2008.  Since then, Occipital created the de-facto barcode scanner for iPhone, called RedLaser.

University Parent Media,  Sarah Schupp, Founder/CEO

During her senior year at the University of Colorado, Sarah Schupp won the business plan competition at the Deming Center for Entrepreneurship for University Parent Media, a company devoted to helping colleges communicate with parents in print and online. Since, Schupp has partnered with over 125 universities to provide helpful parenting tips and community information for their college parent audiences. In 2007, Schupp was named one of Businessweek.com’s top 25 Entrepreneurs under 25: http://images.businessweek.com/ss/07/10/1022_25and_under/source/22.htm

Odojo, Inc.,  Mike Stemple, Founder/CEO

With more than 15 years in high-tech and entrepreneurial environments, Mike brings unmatched executive level experience in technology and growth-stage companies to Odojo. Previous to Odojo, Mike served as Founder and President of SkinIt, Original Wraps, and Bottle Wraps Inc. where he formed the initial infrastructure; developed the products and manufacturing processes; oversaw the release of numerous products into the automotive, consumer electronic, and outdoor retail/wholesale channels; established a management team, and raised the necessary venture capital. After leading SkinIt Inc. through two years of revenue growth and international expansion, Mike navigated the successful sale of the company to Global Wireless Entertainment, Inc., a leading provider of brand management services. Mike’s background also includes serving as Founder, Chairman and CEO of nReach Inc. which was purchased by SmartServ, Inc., (OTC: SSRV) a leading provider of Mobile Virtual Network Operator (MVNO) infrastructure services and TRIPDA/ Nomad Labs Inc., a developer of wireless technologies for the retail market. Mike is a Colorado native, a graduate of Metropolitan State College with a B.A. Degree in Biology/Chemistry, and a veteran of the United States Army Medical Corp.

Next Big Sound, Inc.,  Alex White, CEO

Alex White spent two years at Universal Records, worked at a recording studio, ran his own radio show, did all the booking and producing at Northwestern University (Kanye West, Wilco, Flight of the Conchords, Counting Crows) and tour managed an up-and-coming band on a nationwide tour. In the past he played guitar, wrote songs and fronted his own band in upstate NY. He went to school at Northwestern University where he met his Next Big Sound co-founders. They went through the TechStars program during the summer of 2009 in Boulder, CO and raised a round of financing from Foundry Group, Alsop Louie, SoftechVC and several prominent angels.

TerraLUX, Inc.,  Tony Catalano, Founder/CTO

Dr. Catalano received a B.S. in Chemistry from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and a Ph.D. in Solid State Chemistry from Brown University. He joined the Institute of Energy Conversion at the University of Delaware and worked on the development of new semiconductor materials for thin film solar cells. He then joined RCA’s Princeton laboratory, where he developed the world’s first 10% efficient a-Si:H solar cell, for which he received the lab’s Outstanding Achievement Award. He left RCA and with a group of colleagues founded the Thin Film Division of the Solarex Corp., to commercialize thin film amorphous silicon solar cells and related flat panel display technology. Dr. Catalano subsequently joined the National Renewable Energy Laboratory as the Director of the Photovoltaics Division where he served from 1992-1996. He then established a private consulting practice, advising numerous clients, including John Walton’s venture firm, True North Partners, the investors in First Solar, that has gone public in recent years. In 2003, recognizing the growing opportunity in LED-based lighting that arose from the availability of white LEDs, he founded TerraLUX, a company that develops, manufactures and sells LED lighting products. Dr. Catalano has numerous patents and well over 100 scientific publications. He is a Senior Member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE).

The event will be hosted at the University of Colorado Law School, Wittemeyer Courtroom # 101.  The cost to attend the seminar will be $25.00 and will include lunch.

For more information and to register visit:  RMVCA Bootcamp