I co-founded a new not-for-profit group in Eugene, Oregon called Smart-ups. Being an entrepreneur myself it’s a pain in the you know what to trek my butt up to Portland, Seattle or down to San Francisco to find support for my start-up OsoEco.
So a friend of mine – Nathan Lillegard, who is the CEO and founder of Floragenex (a start-up in Eugene) – and I decided to start a group in little ole Eugene to help connect entrepreneurs to investors, service providers, mentors, and business and community leaders. Hence, Smart-ups was founded!
We had our 3rd Pub-Talk event this past week (Oct 14) and it was very successful – 101 people showed up to show their support. Three companies from within the Willamette Valley pitched their business plan in less than 12 minutes. The winner was Take Shape (Springfield). They have a patent-pending body scanning technology that sets a news standard for the way human fitness is evaluated.
We also had a 1-minute pitch contest where four entrepreneurs from the Eugene-area pitched their businesses in less than one minute. The winner was Score 4 Reading (Eugene). Score 4 Reading is a research-based innovative program for creating successful readers from struggling readers, grades 3rd – 9th.
Congrats to all companies for being selected to present.
We got some good press as a result. Visit www.smartups.org to read more.
