MONTHLY CHANCE MEETINGS
September 12, 2022, 5 - 7 pm @ Snake River Roasting Co. Cafe (50 West Broadway)
NOTE NEW LOCATION
Please register below
Sometimes all you need is the right connection and a little inspiration. Well, what are you waiting for? Find both at our free monthly networking event. You never know...
Theme: Tools and Strategies for Effective Management
Effective staff management is more than making schedules and delegating tasks—It takes vision, leadership, and diligence. Join us for Chance Meetings on Monday, September 12th from 5-7 pm for a talk from Silicon Couloir board members and proven business experts Cynthia Blankenship and Tom Quantrille. Cynthia and Tom will impart both practical and actionable management skills necessary for creating an aligned, productive, and efficient team. Topics covered will include:
Setting clear expectations with staff
Defining & refining company values
Living those values and making them the cornerstone of your company
How and why to give constructive feedback
PLEASE NOTE OUR LOCATION THIS MONTH IS THE SNAKE RIVER ROASTING COMPANY CAFE LOCATED AT 50 WEST BROADWAY JUST DOWNSTAIRS FROM THE ROSE.
NEWS AND NOTES
OLD BILLS SEASON IS HERE & WE NEED YOUR HELP!
Silicon Couloir works toward a vibrant and diverse Teton region economy by empowering entrepreneurs and helping them realize their professional dreams. We offer an array of free to low-cost programs designed to assist ventures at every stage of development, from founding to funding. Our ecosystem companies create sustainable, year-round and high paying jobs, enabling ambitious and creative individuals to remain in the area.
Our world-class programs include TEAMS, Pitch Day, Angel Investing Group, Chance Meetings, Start-Up Success, and The Cowork Space, all of which require significant resources to plan, administer, and execute. As a 501c3 nonprofit, we are supported 100% by community donations from people like you who want to see their entrepreneurial neighbors succeed.
If you appreciate the investment Silicon Couloir makes in our community please support our work through Old Bill’s Fun Run. Your gift will be leveraged with a generous match from the Community Foundation of Jackson Hole CoChallengers. Donate from now until Friday, September 16th at 5pm.
POLISHING THE PITCH FOR OCTOBER 19TH
Our five fantastic finalists are hard at work prepping for Pitch Day 2022. Don't miss the entrepreneurial event of the year on Wednesday, October 19th from 5-8 pm at Center for the Arts. Reception to follow the main event. The completion will be live streamed for those who can't attend in person. Though Pitch Day is free to attend and open to the public, we ask that you kindly register by clicking the button below.
Overview Coffee, founder by Alex Yoder, goes beyond organic with regenerative agriculture.
REGISTER NOW FOR 22 IN 21: HOW HEALTHY ARE WE
22 in 21: Jackson Hole in the 21st Century, is our region’s premier forum for considering where we are, where we are going, and how we might create the future we want. This year’s theme is “22 in 21: How Healthy Are We?”
“22 in 21: How Healthy Are We?” draws from the Vision Statement of the Jackson/Teton County Comp Plan: “Preserve and protect the area’s ecosystem in order to ensure a healthy environment, community and economy for current and future generations.”
But what is a healthy environment? A healthy community? A healthy economy? How healthy are ours? How do we know? Without clear answers to these questions, it will be difficult for us to achieve the future we want.
Given how the COVID pandemic has accelerated the pace of growth and change in the Tetons region, answering these questions is critical. This year’s 22 in 21 will begin that process.
What: 22 in 21: How Healthy Are We?
When: Wednesday, October 5; 10:00am - 5:00 pm, with a social hour to follow
Where: Snow King Resort
Cost: $100 (includes lunch and the social hour)
AUGUST VISIONARY VENTURES: AHH, THE JOY OF HAVING A BUSINESS PLAN
Maligned. Necessary. Reviled. Revealing. Too much work. High priority. Low priority...the much loved and much hated business plan. In our September edition of Visionary Ventures, Gary Trauner brings clarity to the importance of a business plan, the elements it should contain and why a seeming “academic” exercise should be a key part of any entrepreneur’s journey.
ENTREPRENEUR HAPPENINGS
Big congratulations to Mia Share, 2021 Pitch Day Panelist and Audience Choice award winner, on the opening of their new office in Jackson! Mia Share connects students and schools to the future of fair education payments through income share agreements, payment plans and other custom payment solutions.
Ik'splôr, Co-Founded by Karissa Akin and Kailey Gieck, has been accepted as a finalists into the Title Nine Pitchfest, which will be held in early September. They are busy preparing with the help of two Pitchfest coaches from Good Morning America.
WELCOME TO NEW TRUSTEES
A warm welcome to new Silicon Couloir Trustees. Thank you to LizAnn Eisen, Todd Foley, and Salim Mitha your generous commitment to supporting entrepreneurship in the Teton region.
LizAnn Eisen retired as a corporate partner from Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP at the end of 2018. She spent more than twenty years focusing on public and private corporate finance transactions, mergers & acquisitions, corporate governance and liability management transactions. Since then, LizAnn has been an adjunct faculty member and senior lecturer at Cornell University/Cornell Tech (teaching law and MBA students), University of Oregon Law School and Tel Aviv University Law School. From January 2022 to August 2022, LizAnn served as the Deputy Director, Disclosure Operations, in the Division of Corporation Finance at the SEC. There she led a team of over 350 people responsible for overseeing US public company disclosure.
Todd Foley moved full-time to Alta, WY in 2020. He is a partner in the venture capital firm MPM Capital, which he joined in 1999. His focus is on founding and investing in biotech startups working to develop new drugs to treat unmet medical needs. He serves on a number of MPM portfolio company boards, including Aktis Oncology (Chairman and co-founder), CODA Bio, Crossbow Therapeutics (Chairman and co-founder), Entrada Therapeutics (NASDAQ: TRDA), Repare Therapeutics (NASDAQ: RPTX), and Tetherex Inc. He previously served on the board of Semma Therapeutics, a potentially curative diabetes cell-therapy company founded by Doug Melton at Harvard, which was acquired by Vertex for $950M in 2019 in one of the largest ever preclinical M&A deals. He guided Selexys Pharmaceuticals to an acquisition by Novartis for $665M in 2016. Later, Novartis launched the Selexys drug, Adakveo™ in late 2019 to treat sickle cell disease. Todd earned his M.B.A. from Harvard Business School and his B.S. in Chemistry from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Salim Mitha enjoys helping startups grow, and now gets to do this every day as a media, entertainment, gaming & sports investor at Powerhouse Capital, a sector-focused Los Angeles based venture capital firm. Most recently Salim was a Partner at Evolution Media, the growth venture capital firm that invested in partnership TPG Growth and Creative Artists Agency (CAA). Prior to being an investor, he spent a few cycles as an entrepreneur where he launched three startups, helped them grow, and guided them all to successful exits (and all three continue to thrive to this day). Salim's past tech experience derives from running Yahoo! Search & Social Search across Europe, and from startup e-commerce marketplace company Wahanda (Treatwell) which was acquired by Recruit of Japan, owners of indeed.com and Glassdoor.
2022 PROGRESS REPORT ~ BY THE NUMBERS
✶ 8 Chance Meetings
✶ 407 attendees
✶ 2,927 newsletter subscribers
✶ 16,476 newsletter opens
✶ 41 companies mentored
✶ 483 volunteer hours May-Sept
✶ 161 mentor meetings
✶ 51 mentors
✶ 50 members ea. summer month
✶ 500+ additional sq. feet added
LEARN MORE ABOUT SILICON COULOIR
HAVE NEWS TO SHARE?
As always, please feel free to send news of your company's press, events, successes, and milestones to Gary@siliconcouloir.com and we'll do our best to feature them in our newsletters!
Silicon Couloir strengthens our Teton regional community by empowering the entrepreneurial ecosystem. More than just business development, we believe in enriching our community character and enhancing our mountain town culture. Help us support business pioneers in the Tetons by becoming a community caretaker!
To offer your time or talent, please email us at Gary@siliconcouloir.com.