Here at Winston Starts, we are never shocked by the incredible things that happen when we get a room full of amazing entrepreneurs and the people who support them together. After months of preparation, on January 15th we had the pleasure of hosting our Investor Forum; a half day event that brought together Investors of different industries to share their experience and knowledge while having an opportunity to see the talent we have among our companies at Winston Starts. We had a full house and by the end of the event, our team had full hearts to match after seeing so much support for the startup community!
The morning kicked things off with an introduction to Winston Starts and six of its resident companies. Each founder took the stage to share who they were as a company and what they were looking forward to in their season of growth. These founders included Rob Arnold of Threat Sketch, Carl Turner of Swipeby, Nate Atkinson of Village Juice Co., John and Marie Quinn of Wellnecity, Logan Harvey of FanPark and Jeanna Carr of Rent Assured. While each company belongs to a different industry and shared a vastly different entrepreneurial journey, you can see the constant among them was their ambition and dedication.
After our founder presentations, the Business Luncheon portion of the forum was underway and we had the pleasure of hearing from our highly anticipated Keynote Speaker, Doug Kaufman. From the moment Doug took the stage to his final answer during the Q&A portion our audience was engaged!
Doug Kaufman is the CEO of Transloc and quite frankly, this is a guy who knows how to inspire a room! Transloc is a pioneering company delivering flexible, demand-driven microtransit technology and services to municipal transit agencies. He became CEO in 2014 with the company worth $4 Million and a mere 18 months later, was acquired by Ford for $60 Million. Mr. Kaufman shared not only his experience as CEO but many of the lessons that he learned along the way.
The presentation began by inviting us all to play a game of “Who Am I” where each slide that greeted us showcased facts of a life filled with challenges and hardships only to discover each narrative belonged to a world renowned entrepreneur. When the game was done, Mr. Kaufman provided us with this important reminder and moment of clarity;
“Great entrepreneurs don’t always look like Zuckerburg. They can be male, female, black, white, rich, poor, short, tall. Don’t limit your investments to a certain type. Don’t pattern match. It is very possible that the next unicorn is somewhere in this room.”
As he shared more tales of his journey and lessons of investments, it was important for him to make sure the room joined him in this understanding: nobody has it all figured out and we’re all trying our best.
“I want to leave you with this: Don’t give up. So many entrepreneurs say that the reason they are successful is that right before they gave up, they turned the corner and kept going and that’s where success finally came. Remember that the very next day may be the day that success happens.“
We couldn’t be more thankful for Mr. Kaufman’s dynamic presentation filled with insight and inspiration and know our audience walked away with some incredible information and motivation!
The final portion of the forum, our Venture Capital Panel Discussion, truly showcased how fortunate we are to live in a state and be part of a community where there is such support and understanding of what growing startups need. Will Johnson of Salem Investment Partners both moderated and curated this panel and did a great job bringing diverse knowledge to the stage with the following members; David Jones of Bull City Ventures, Lister Delgado of IDEA Fund Partners, Tom Hearn of Dioko Ventures, Monique Villa of Mucker Capital and Angel Rutledge of SignUpGenius.
The panel answered questions and provided insight on everything from “What investors want to see?” to “How to better understand the investor perspective”.
We were grateful to fill the room with an amazing array of local talent, knowledge, support and resources from everyone who participated to all who joined us. Winston Starts is excited to see the relationships that form coming out of this event and look forward to hosting another Investor Forum next year.
If you would like more information about Winston Starts companies or any of our panelists please reach out here. 2020 is just starting out and we have an exciting calendar of events for the year we would love to invite you to take part in. Be sure to sign up for our newsletter so you don’t miss a thing!
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