Today's Leadership meeting - Weekly Now - Notes
David Parker
We covered a ton of material today.
Note: We are going back to weekly meetings – there’s just way too much going on and we need some time to discuss things and get all of your advice.
Quick Summary of the Meeting
We discussed the two partners meetings held this week, which went well. About 10 partners total made the meetings, where we brought them up to speed on the pitch contests, the accelerator program, and marketing efforts we can help the partners with (so it’s not a two way street).
We discussed some ways to involve partners in hosting their own pitch contests, where the Sandbox would support and provide some funding. Some suggestions on possible organizations: COOL, Western Ave, Boys and Girls Club/Girls Inc. On the latter, we’d have to see how pitch contests for youngsters – not even in high school – would work, and whether they might be involved with the Catalyst programs as well. The City Unemployment Offices/Workforce Development Offices could also be possibilities here.
David discussed the Focus Group of entrepreneurs held on Tuesday. We had 16 participants and covered a ton of material. Overall, the group was enthusiastic about what the Sandbox can offer and they were enthused about participating in our Mini Accelerator. They were OK with the timeframe proposed (Dec-Feb), using Lowell and Lawrence locations, and meeting times mostly outside of 9-5. They saw the benefit from group discussions about various issues (this happened even during the meeting), mentors, experts, teaching, etc. Very favorable overall.
The Leaders discussed our pending Mentor program for the Accelerator Program. The focus group participants were quite enthusiastic about this. Nancy emphasized that having “floating experts” in addition to mentors could be very helpful, for when mentors are hard to reach or aren’t a perfect fit for a particular issue.
Regarding programming, the focus group made clear that there is a wide range of needs, from “Business 101” to more advanced, specialized information/learning. We talked about the possibility of leveraging existing resources in the community, like the Small Business Center, to help with some of this programming, like entry level introductions to business. The Sandbox would probably be able to do a strong job finding experts/entrepreneurs in the community for the more specialized teaching/workshops. More work to done in this area. All agreed that taking advantage of existing resources makes good sense.
Nancy thought that a decent amount of the programming should be manadatory, with some of the more specialized offerings made optional. We want the entrepreneurs to commit to the program and to improving their ideas and their knowledge.
We talked briefly about making headway with the Sun and the Eagle-Tribune – to try to get sit-downs with their editorial boards, and perhaps get them to think about features on entrepreneurship for Entrepreneur Week which is in November. Theresa suggested seeing if Jim Cook of the Lowell Plan could help.
Tom is going to work on an RFP for our space needs, to make it public. We are also planning on visiting some sites in coming weeks.
We are looking into adding community-oriented functionality into our web site.
The new names proposed to replace IdeaLaunch are being vetted (briefly) by a law firm.
We are in good shape on judges for the next two pitch contests. We will be looking for Desh to help with the last Champions one, to bring in some “celebrity” talent.
I hope everyone can make next week’s meeting!
Thanks
David
David Parker
Co-Executive Director
Director of Entrepreneur Development
Merrimack Valley Sandbox
Merrimack Valley Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship at UMass Lowell
Wannalancit Mills, First Floor
600 Suffolk Street, Lowell, MA 01854
Da...@MerrimackValleySandbox.org
MerrimackValleySandbox.org
office: 978-934-6619
cell: 781-325-3085