BizStarts News Flash

Save the Date! STARTUP ACCELERATOR is coming to Waukesha!

Calling all entrepreneurs, designers, makers, educators and do-ers! Take your ideas to the next step and attend Startup Accelerator on Saturday, September 25, at the Waukesha Technical Community College Small Business Center. The event, co-sponsored by BizStarts, CATI and Bucketworks, runs from 10am to 4pm and will be held in the Richard T. Anderson Educational Center, 800 Main Street Campus, Pewaukee, WI. Ages 8 to 80 are welcome!

Startup Accelerator brings together entrepreneurs, idea-generators, resource providers, and people with vision to create new connections through collaborative and open education sessions. Startup Accelerator is free! We ask only for your active participation and for a donation to the Waukesha Food Pantry.


UWM's growth touted for new jobs

BizStarts Milwaukee's Dan Steininger was recently quoted in a Milwaukee Journal story on the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee's growth plan and its role in creating start-ups and spinoffs. .

UWM has seen a major increase in research funding during Santiago's six years as chancellor. Outside research grants to UWM, mainly from the federal government, increased 31% in five years, from $24.8 million in 2004 to $32.6 million in 2009.

That's creating the basis for more start-up businesses, spun off from university research, said Dan Steininger, vice president of BizStarts Milwaukee, a nonprofit mentoring group for entrepreneurs, and co-director of Successful Entrepreneur Investors LLC, a network of business start-up investors. Those new companies, in emerging industries, are badly needed to replace job losses throughout southeastern Wisconsin, he said. "The region has so much riding on this," Steininger said. Read the story here.

 
Chelsea Krause leads program that fosters startups

Up until recently there really hasn’t been a dedicated resource in Milwaukee for early stage innovative businesses with potentially high growth ideas.

BizStarts Milwaukee was formed two years ago out of a task force established by the Greater Milwaukee Committee designed to study innovation. BizStarts is dedicated to assisting entrepreneurial startups in southeastern Wisconsin. The BizStarts Venture Track Program, a program formed a year and a half ago is making significant strides in fostering the region’s entrepreneurs and startup ventures.

“We are filling a niche,” said Chelsea Krause, executive director of the Venture Track program. “The program works with entrepreneurs with innovative ideas or products with high growth potential on a regional and statewide fasis.”

The program is divided up into three tracks and is free to participating entrepreneurs, Krause said. 

Click here for the complete article, "Chelsea Krause leads program that fosters startups".

Click here for the BizTimes complete article titles, "10 people who are CHANGING MILWAUKEE".


Research-to-patients grant in Milwaukee is topic at Sept. 8 WIN-Milwaukee event sponsored by BizStarts Milwaukee

Learn how a $20-million National Institutes of Health grant to the Medical College of Wisconsin and seven other Milwaukee-area institutions will help speed research discoveries to patients at the Wednesday, Sept. 8 meeting of the Wisconsin Innovation Network’s Milwaukee-area chapter.  For more information on the event, click here

Entrepreneur Showcase

Alterra Coffee

Left to right:  Lincoln Fowler     Paul Miller        Ward Fowler

Alterra Coffee was founded in 1993 by Ward Fowler, Paul Miller and Lincoln Fowler.  The initial vision of a single cafe quickly morphed into wholesale roasting and multiple cafes.  Not much later (and true to our unofficial mantra; "Never met an idea we did not want to complicate") we opened the Alterra Baking Company.  The bakery bled red ink for 4 years while we recovered from our spending binge on the lakefront.  Sufficiently chastened, we buckled down for a couple of years and focused on operations and tight financial management.  Another building binge gave birth to cafes 6, 7, 8 and 9 and a new headquarters building in Riverwest.  Now with over 200 staff members and a solid management team we are well positioned to continue to grow.

Our recent deal with Mars Drinks secures a new path for growth globally, while preserving the local ownership of all of our Milwaukee operations.  We look forward to the new opportunities and challenges this presents.

More on the History of Alterra Coffee

21st Century Entrepreneurs     Legacy Entrepreneurs

Topics

Platinum Sponsor

Godfrey & Kahn, S.C.

Regional Economic Partnership

We Energies

Zizzo Group Advertising + Public Relations

Wisconsin Department of Commerce

Milwaukee Economic Development Corporation

Wisconsin Entrepreneurs' Network

Serigraph, Inc.

Virchow, Krause & Company

Gold Sponsor

Michael Best & Friedrich

Ernst & Young

Silver Sponsor

Boyle Fredrickson


Bronze Sponsor

Wisconsin Department of Financial Institutions

Whyte Hirschboeck Dudek S.C. 

Wisconsin Business Development

Milwaukee Area Technical College

Events & Classes

Startup Accelerator

Startup Accelerator brings together entrepreneurs, idea-generators, resource providers, and people with vision to create new connections through collaborative and open education sessions.

Startup Accelerator is free!

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Quick$tart

Watch real-life aspiring entrepreneurs pitch their companies to seasoned Angel investors. Observe feedback from experienced Angel Investors.  Watch Quick$tart to learn what it takes to start a successful business.