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Are you interested in something new? Have you been working for a while in the same role and looking for growth? Well you need to pay attention to the start up scene. Here’s the deal: your next job is most likely going to come from a company that is starting right now. There’s a saying, “if…

Last week, I went to the Alabama – Arkansas game with a few Venture For America Fellows. Driving in, I asked myself what I was going to do about parking… I mean how does Tuscaloosa handle 20,000 more cars on game days? Enter the entrepreneurial spirit of Americans. People who live in Tuscaloosa have figured out…

On Tuesday, our judges met to review this cycle’s competition entrants. It was a very lively 4 hour discussion after roughly 2 weeks of review. Being in the room gives me hope for the creative and entrepreneurial spirit of start ups in Alabama. To that, we felt it would be appropriate to share some data from…

Dear Entrepreneurs in Alabama, Let me tell you something you probably already know: there is not a lot of venture capital investment in Alabama. In fact, in 2016 there was only $47M invested according to PWC/ CB Insights. I hear folks complain about this. Don’t. It’s a waste of time. Rather, I think it’s good to adjust. Here…

Are you honest about your start up’s prospects? The goal of Alabama Launchpad is to help entrepreneurs create high growth companies in Alabama. This is really important. Too often we’ve found, people are enamored with the idea of being an entrepreneur, but have lost sight of the fact that they are working on an idea that…

Hey!!! This Alabama Launchpad competition round is closing soon! With just about 2 weeks left, you should be thinking less about doing more and more about clarifying and polishing. In fact, you should really be focusing on removing as many distractions as possible. Because, with a field of roughly 50 companies, distractions are a death knell…

OK… let’s talk about making an overview video for your business plan. For many folks, this can feel daunting. And yes, making a video can get very complicated… but this one shouldn’t be. If you own a smart phone, you’ve already got the camera you need. And if you can describe your customers, their need, and how…

If there’s one thing you can do to get started right, it’s to really really really define your customer. Did you get that? I wrote “really” three times… in bold and italics and underlined. I mean it. To really define your customer, you have to get much more in depth than something like my customer is “men.”…