I was invited to spend last week in Kansas City at the Kauffman Foundation’s ESHIP Summit as an ambassador for the Sacramento startup community. Over 425 people engaged in supporting entrepreneurial ecosystems from over 200 cities, 48 states and 12 countries, participated. Some of my favorite startup advocates — Brad Feld (Startup Communities author), Steve Case (founder of AOL and responsible for launching the Rise of the Rest movement) and a new favorite, Victor Hwang (VP of Entrepreneurship at Kauffman and co-author of of The Rainforest: The Secret to Building the Next Silicon Valley), spoke at the event. This was my first exposure to the “Rules of the Rainforest,” and I am intrigued. The basic premise is that nurturing innovation ecosystems requires different rules than free market thinking suggests. I plan to add it to my summer reading list. Have you read it? What did you think?
More than just listening to speakers, we all participated in 2-days of design thinking exercises to create better entrepreneurial ecosystems. I learned tons about what other communities are doing to advance innovation and entrepreneurship and brought back some fabulous ideas for our community–stay tuned!
This Week’s Best Bets
Hacker Lab’s Entrepreneur in Residence Jake Elia will be at InnoGrove on Tuesday for a free workshop — Leveraging Lean Startup and Design Thinking.
Impact Venture Capital is hosting Legal Office Hours on Wednesday morning. Sign up for a free 30-minute consult with Chris Russell, partner at Stoel Rives LLP while there are still open slots! This follows 1 Million Cups so come to both!
Come celebrate new startups at Hacker Lab’s Startup Hustle Demo Night in Rocklin on Wednesday. There will be beer & eats at this free event!
Celebrate the end of June at StartupSac Happy Hour on Thursday at Cilantro’s in Downtown. This months “Ask Me Anything” guests are attorneys Jan Roos and Ryan Norman. Did someone say free legal advice?
Plan Ahead
For the diehard’s who won’t be slacking the day after Independence Day, Go-BIZ has a free seminar on California Competes Tax Credits on Wednesday, July 5, There’s $200 Million in tax credits up for grabs — find out if your business qualifies and how to apply.
The Startup Summer Party is Tuesday, July 11 at The Urban Hive! Join this FREE summer celebration! RSVP here.
The Apps for Ag Hackthon is now FREE to participate! Sign up for this 3-day event (July 28-30) and your team might win the $10,000 prize for your food or ag focused app!
There’s lots of great stuff going on in the tech startup community–check out the details in this week’s Startup Digest. If you’d like to receive the digest in your inbox every Monday morning, sign up for free here. If you’ve organized (or know about) an event we have not included, please submit it here for consideration. And for even more startup information, happenings and resources, visit the StartupSac Website. Note: We include a lot of tech events that aren’t necessarily startup-focused on the event calendar on the StartupSac website. Check it out here.
