[vc_row padding_top=”0px” padding_bottom=”0px”][vc_column fade_animation_offset=”45px” width=”1/1″][text_output]Media Contact: Jessalyn Holdcraft, NewBoCo Director of Marketing
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Iowa Startup Accelerator launches third cohort
All of Iowa Startup Accelerator’s 2016 cohort companies were born and built in Iowa. Tonight, the six teams took the stage to celebrate the end of 90 days of hustle, work, and pivots for Launch Day at the Paramount Theatre with 700 people attending Launch Day in-person and 2000+ tuning in online to cheer on the pitches via multiple livestreams.
Not only was this Launch Day the first to feature all Iowa-based companies, but half of the founders/CEOs were women.
Program Manager Molly Monk said “NewBoCo and the Iowa Startup Accelerator are dedicated to making gender equality a reality in the entrepreneurial ecosystem. We have more to do, but having half of our cohort led by women in 2016 is a step in the right direction. Having Lieutenant Governor Kim Reynolds speak so passionately about this nonpartisan issue at Launch Day helped underscore the efforts we are making.”
One of the cohort companies focuses on exactly the issue of underrepresentation of women in leadership positions: Girls With Ideas. Founder and CEO Dr. Allison Poss’s story for Girls With Ideas captured the attention of people such as priceline.com Founder Jeff Hoffman and EMILY’s List President Stephanie Schriock. Those connections are helping the team forge new partnerships with organizations that serve girls.
“While we felt focused on the company before the accelerator, the mentors helped us to laser-focus on solving problems because they offered expertise to quickly create frameworks, financial models, and new connections. They had answers for questions we didn’t even know to ask,” Dr. Poss said.
AssetRover also found two of its pilot customers through the accelerator program, commercial property developers Joe Ahmann of Compass Commercial Services in Cedar Rapids and Mark Kittrell of River Place in Cedar Falls.
“As a part of the accelerator, gaining direct access to our mentors and them opening up their networks of contacts was hugely helpful in connecting with our pilot customers,” AssetRover CEO Jeri Frank said.
Thanks to the accelerator program, Soteria Bicycles, formerly known as AMP’d Cycles, went from idea to prototyping to a planned Kickstarter campaign in early 2017.
“Soteria Bicycles was able to make key decisions based on conversations and suggestions from our mentors that saved us time and money, both of which are precious to a startup business,” Soteria Bicycles CEO Kyle Gatzmeyer said. “These individuals have been a tremendous resource that would not have been presented to us as early nor as effectively had we not been selected for the program.”
After beta testing their product with 1000+ users, Hang announced the launch of their app for both Android and iPhone tonight.
“ISA provided us with a healthy ecosystem where we could quickly test and iterate our products features and design,” Hang CEO Dalton Viggers said. “The cohort always challenged us to see what we could not and the mentor network provided us with years of expertise and insight.”
“We got some great energy and feedback from the Launch Day audience, and today more people are getting together than ever before on Hang.”
This cohort was full of firsts including Streamweaver, the team of Keevin O’Rourke and Wes Merrill, who told their story of how they killed their company in less than 90 days.
“It’s not easy to kill your company, but the ISA was very supportive of the fail fast mentality. Luckily, we have a ton of ideas and we are now able to focus on the next opportunity.” Keevin
“Entrepreneurs take incredible risks – and one of them is that even if you do everything ‘right’, the timing might be wrong, or an unforeseen competitor takes the opportunity away. Keevin and Wes are amazing entrepreneurs and we’re excited to see where they go next,” said Eric Engelmann, Executive Director.
For the final act the Launch Day stage was transformed into a WRITTEN Apparel fashion runway.
WRITTEN Apparel debuted its sophomore collection in late October at Midwest Fashion Week: Chicago as one of six designers chosen to present. Founder and Creative Director Emily Carlson made the stage her runway.
“The biggest challenge with this runway show was building on all the key fundamentals within a normal runway show but scaling it down to 30 seconds. We also had 1 hour prior to the event to actually practice with the models to get choreography right,” Carlson said. “I can put together a runway show in my sleep, and the most exciting part about this one in particular was that it was in the middle of a business pitch.”
WRITTEN announced that their online store is now live with their debut and sophomore collections available for pre-order. The company has shifted to a local seamstress to create one-of-a-kind pencil skirts for their customers, which means that size, shape, and height can’t stop a WRITTEN woman from making a style statement.
“In using our local seamstress, custom skirt orders become far more affordable and reasonable for both us as the designer and for the customer,” Carlson said. “Although we offer the WRITTEN collection in a selected range of predetermined sizes, our ability to create custom pieces with such an intimate relationship with our supply chain can provide the WRITTEN woman a truly one-of-a-kind statement piece that tells the story unique to her.”
The City of Cedar Rapids passed a proclamation declaring November 3 “Entrepreneurship & Innovation Day” in honor of Launch Day.
“Launch Day is a celebration of entrepreneurship that we are always lucky to share with people from across the state,” Accelerator Managing Director David Tominsky said.
“The truth is that Launch Day is not a finish line. We’ll continue to support entrepreneurs and early stage companies as long as they’ll have us. There’s a lot of work that continues to need to be done and we’ll continue to help do work.”
About Iowa Startup Accelerator
Iowa Startup Accelerator is an intensive program that matches tech-based startups, especially those in ag, health, education, manufacturing, and transportation technology, with world-class mentors, Midwestern work ethic, seed funding, and development expertise to take them from concept to successful launch in 90 days. Iowa Startup Accelerator is powered by NewBoCo, a 501(c)(3) organization.[/text_output][/vc_column][/vc_row]