TRAVERSE CITY – A clone of A2 New Tech Meetup, a monthly pitch night in Ann Arbor, has sprung up in this northern Michigan resort town. TC New Tech will meet again on Oct. 4 in downtown Traverse City to listen as five entrepreneurs get five minutes each to make their case about why their projects should get funded.
Founder A. Russell Schindler CEO of SampleServe.Com, a water testing company, attended an A2 New Tech meeting and “borrowed” the idea, he admitted. The Ann Arbor event was started years ago by Dug Song, the co-founder and CEO of Duo Security.
“Dug Song gave his approval,” Schindler said. “He said he copied it from a similar event in Silicon Valley. It seemed like a great idea. So I copied him.”
TC New Tech started in May 2015. It took a little time to catch on, but since January 2016 the group has regularly been attracting more than 100 people to its monthly presentations, Schindler said. The mailing list has grown to 452 names. The group meets the first Tuesday of every month at 6 pm in the Ecco Event Space at 121 E. Front Street.
The format is simple: Five entrepreneurs pitch. Five minutes to talk. Five minutes to answer questions.
Schindler also is active in improving the tech entrepreneur ecosystem in Traverse City. He’s been talking to some of the richest folks in the area in hopes they will help fund a tech incubator that could take the TC New Tech funded entrepreneurs and teach them how to commercialize their products and services.
He also supports an effort by Cherryland Electric Cooperative and Traverse City Light & Power to build high-speed fiber in this resort town. See related story: https://mitechnews.com/news/support-grows-fiber-optic-network-traverse-city/
“What we’re trying to do is help tech entrepreneurship and create higher paying jobs for the region,” Schindler said. “With the combination of fiber optics, tech entrepreneurs, and the beauty of the area, we plan to become the Boulder, Colorado, of the Midwest. Lack of high-speed Internet has been the biggest problem. We have the tech entrepreneurs.”
Schindler remains optimistic both the tech incubator and fiber optic Internet connections will both come through. Like all good salesmen, he urges anyone looking at locating a tech operation in Traverse City to act quickly.
“If you have a tech company and you’re looking to move to TC,” he said, “get in now while it’s still cheap.”
You can learn more about TC New Tech by clicking on http://www.tcnewtech.org
Schindler will appear Monday Oct. 3 on M2 TechCast, co-hosteded by MITechNews.Com Editor Mike Brennan and former tech journalist Matt Roush. The show airs live from 3 to 4 pm at www.podcastdetroit.com.
M2 TechCast podcast archives can be found at https://mitechnews.com/category/m2-techcast/
