📅 Friday Coffee Meetup: Building Companies While Running Startup Accelerators on Three Continents

RSVPed Attending Building Companies While Running Startup Accelerators on Three Continents
From Hong Kong, to Los Angeles, to the Vatican. How running three very different startup accelerators over five years changed the way I think about entrepreneurship. Multiple program formats, 100+ companies, tens of millions in funding, lots of customers, exits, all across three continents. The talk will focus on: • Commonalities growing companies face across locations. • Getting results: How I try to trick people into learning. • Next steps in thinking about the future of company growth. Bio Paul Orlando enables companies to grow. He is Incubator Director and Adjunct Professor of Entrepreneurship at USC. Paul has founded and operated successful startup accelerator programs in Hong Kong (focused on mobile development), Los Angeles (focused on growing a wide range of companies with founders affiliated with USC), and Rome (the Laudato Si accelerator, partnered with the Vatican and focused on environmental technology). Companies Paul has worked with have raised tens of millions in capital, served millions of customers, and have been acquired. He has authored several related academic case studies available on Harvard Business Publishing. Paul also helps larger institutions innovate, develop, and grow, especially in lowering the risk of innovation projects, speeding up learning cycles, and transitioning past legacy business models and products. Paul has been featured in media including Forbes, TechCrunch, Fast Company, and the Wall Street Journal. He was a winner at the TechCrunch Disrupt Hackathon. Paul has a BA from Cornell, an MBA from Columbia, and speaks Mandarin. Twitter handle: @porlando Speaker email: paul.orlando@gmail.com Date: Friday, February 23, 2018 from 8:15 AM to 9:30 AM Location: Cross Campus, 85 N. Raymond Avenue · Pasadena, CA Venue is located on the 2nd floor. Free street parking until 11:00 am; except where valet signs are posted. 90 minutes free parking is also available at nearby parking lots.

Checkin Cross Campus Old Pasadena

Listening to Michael Culhane’s talk at the Innovate Friday coffee meetup. He’s talking about “Building a Blockchain based Business and funding it via a TGE.” Interesting talk, but a bit too congratulatory about blockchain potentials with no discussion about many of its downsides.

Checkin Cross Campus Old Pasadena

Checked into Cross Campus Old Pasadena
Speed networking at Friday Morning Coffee Meetup

Checkin Cross Campus Old Pasadena: Friday morning coffee meetup

Checked into Cross Campus Old Pasadena: Friday morning coffee meetup
Adventures in STEAM with a presentation by STEAM:CODERS founder Raymond Ealy

I’m going to have to volunteer some time to this organization.

After the meetup I had a grand conversation with Joe Love II about food. I hope we’ll manage to reconnect later on.

Checkin Cross Campus Old Pasadena

Checked into Cross Campus Old Pasadena: Innovate Pasadena - “Who is this TED guy anyway? And what the heck is TEDx?”
Innovate Pasadena coffee meetup
“Who is this TED guy anyway? And what the heck is TEDx?”

While short and relatively interesting, this talk felt kind of like filler compared to what Friday morning coffees typically present. I’m surprised that it was something that came out of someone who organizes TEDx talks (aside from the short length). The take away was definitely don’t do one of these talks the day before one of the areas biggest TEDx events of the year. The worst part was that she was tired as the result of the event coming up on Saturday and didn’t get the real PR value out of it because the event had been sold out for months already. Better, she should have done it the week before the next event to lead into it.

Checkin Cross Campus Old Pasadena

Andy Wilson speaking at Innovate Pasadena. “My First Rodeo”: Campaign Reflections & Insights

Checkin Cross Campus Old Pasadena

Checked into Cross Campus Old Pasadena
Innovate Pasadena: Valerie Alexander on “How Women Can Succeed in the Workplace”

Sadly, based on the general attendance in comparison to typical weeks and someone who asked new people to raise their hands, there was a terrible turnout of the “regulars” and the majority of those there were first-timers. I’m not sure if it was the timing with the beginning of Summer or perhaps the title of the topic that scared the usual crowds away, but one thing is clear. THEY REALLY MISSED OUT! I’ve been to half a dozen or so of these coffees, and hundreds of presentations in this genre and this was easily one of the best I’ve ever seen.

I’ve written a separate post on some of the detais… It was that good!

Valerie Alexander at Innovate Pasadena

Checkin Cross Campus Old Pasadena

Checked into Cross Campus Old Pasadena
Innovate Pasadena Coffee Meetup with Drew Koven, Managing Dir. of LDR Ventures, an LA based Venture Capital group, talking about the path to profitability.

Adjoa apparently photobombed my attempt to photograph the Innovate Pasadena sign at the entrance. She did a great job turning Koven’s rather drab, self-promoting presentation into lyrical poetry though.