Friends,
This week at Venture Café we are showcasing food and beverage entrepreneurs and their impact on the innovation community. Join us for an evening of presentations, panels and networking to discuss the development of food and beverage companies. We’ll discuss the development of products and dining, hear from successful founders, and learn best practices for starting ventures of your own.
Hope to see you on Thursday!
Thursday, August 22, 2013 | Venture Café in Session | 3:00 – 8:00 P.M.
3:00 – 5:00 P.M. | Massachusetts Small Business Development Center – Office Hours
Mark Allio will be back at the Café for office hours. Mark is Regional Director of the Massachusetts Small Business Development Center (MSBDC) Network’s Boston Regional Office & Minority Business Center at UMass Boston. MSBDC provides free one-on-one business advisory services, entrepreneurial training workshops, and special assistance in gaining access to capital. MSBDC Advisors are all former entrepreneurs. Mark previously co-founded two business ventures: TracRac, a Fall River-based manufacturer of automotive accessories, and Virtuous.com, an e-ticketing service provider serving the arts and entertainment industry. Sign up here for office hours.
3:00 – 5:00 P.M. | Steve Davis Office Hours
Meet with Stephen Davis, a business growth strategist who has been a mentor and advisor to entrepreneurs for over 20 years. He is the Founder of CXO Advisory Group, a company that works with businesses, entrepreneurs and service providers to accelerate revenue growth. Steve can help you strategize to build a profitable, efficient business capable of growing to scale. Sign up here to schedule time with Stephen.
4:00 – 6:00 P.M. | George Mabry – Office Hours
Ask consultant, mentor, and angel investor George Mabry for feedback on your business concept. He is active in Harvard’s, MIT’s, and Greater Boston’s entrepreneurship communities and holds degrees in computer science and business. George co-founded a biotech market research company that was acquired by a global biopharmaceutical service provider in 2008. To speak with him, please sign up at the Café bar for a 20-minute appointment. Come prepared with concise, high-level materials to explain your idea, including the market, the team, and how you are addressing the opportunity or problem.
4:00 – 6:00 P.M. | TCN Upstart Roundtable
Seasoned entrepreneurs and early-stage startups come together in this monthly gathering brought to you by The Capital Network (TCN), Venture Café and Silicon Valley Bank. You will have opportunities to meet fellow entrepreneurs and ask questions about starting a company. This month’s featured entrepreneur is Jason Jacobs of Runkeeper.
3:00 – 8:00 P.M. | Food and Beverage Entrepreneurship Night @ Venture Café
4:00 – 5:00 P.M. | Julia Shanks Office Hours
Julia Shanks – chef and entrepreneur — consults with food businesses and farms, helping them maximize profits and streamline operations through business planning, feasibility studies and operational audits. She is the co-leader of the Boston Chapter of Slow Money, and sits on the advisory council of Future Chefs.
Julia Shanks will be offering office hours on Thursday for food & beverage entrepreneurs who have business planning questions: whether it’s how to format the plan to present to investors or how to create pro-forma, financial projections. Please bring your current plan and financials to make the most of your time.
5:00 P.M. – 7:00 P.M. | Youth Trade Info Table
YouthTrade is a project of Youth Entrepreneurship and Sustainability which aims to link young, mission driven youth entrepreneurs with high-end retail chains such as Whole Foods Market and Nordstrom. It does this through their unique certification architecture that certifies entrepreneurs for being between the ages of 18-35 and for being mission driven. After certification, they host YouthTrade Trade Shows, a space which allows the YouthTrade Entrepreneurs to gain intimate access to major buyers at our retail partners. With our partners, we hope to create a new generation of business leaders who embrace the ideals of conscious capitalism. Come by the Café to learn more about how you can work with Youth Trade today.
5:00 P.M. – 7:00 P.M. | NoshOnIt Info Table
Are you a budding home cook? Come demo NoshOnIt with Co-Founder and CEO Vijay Nathan on Thursday. NoshOnIt’s (Nosh On It) mission is to inspire the home cook. It is a free daily cooking newsletter that helps bring new ideas to your kitchen. They hunt for the best recipes from chefs and bloggers, online and offline, and deliver them right to your inbox along with an expert cooking tip.
5:00 P.M. – 7:00 P.M. | Follow the Honey Info Table
Chat with owner Mary Canning of Follow the Honey. Follow The Honey travels the world bringing the finest of “transparency of source” honeys and bee-inspired offerings to you and your sweet ones. In addition to raw untreated honeys, the Harvard Square store offers solar power created aromatherapy beeswax candles, mead kits, honey filled truffles from local chocolatiers, holiday cards, silk hexy-sexy scarves, and much more. Make sure to bring your sweet tooth!
5:00 P.M. – 7:00 P.M. | Boston TeaWrights Info Table
Learn more about the American Tea Craft movement with Boston TeaWrights. The Boston Teawrights is a startup dedicated to supporting the American Tea Craft movement; a movement of tea crafters (or teawrights) producing both traditional and modern teas. The company supports this movement by supplying teawrights with raw, unprocessed tea leaves and releasing do-it-yourself guides to producing (or crafting) tea at home.
5:00 P.M. – 7:00 P.M. | Bellinger Bros Barbeque Info Table
Bellinger Brothers Barbeque (BBQ) is smoking for everyone! They use traditional hardwoods to smoke brisket, ribs, local fish, and fresh vegetables. They’d like to move from the test kitchen into private catering, and see where that takes them.
5:00 P.M. – 7:00 P.M. | Founder Panels
Have your ever had a great concept for a food product or restaurant? Wondering how you can bring that idea to life? Head up to the Havana Room, on the 5th floor of the CIC on Thursday to learn firsthand about bringing an idea to the market from our two panels featuring food & beverage entrepreneurs. Both panels will be moderated by Rachel Greenberger, Director of Food Sol at Babson College. Food Sol is an action tank supporting students and in-the-field entrepreneurs who are designing positive innovations for the food system. The Economist and The Financial Times recently named Food Sol as a first mover in the realm of business-school hubs for eater-entrepreneurs. In her spare time, Rachel writes on local food business for Examiner.com and leverages social media to engage with concerned eaters across the globe. To sign up for these panels, click here.
5:00 P.M. – 6:00 P.M. | Food Product Panel
Rob Dalton, 88 Acres
Bill Creelman, Spindrift Soda and Stirrings
George Howell, George Howell Coffee
6:00 P.M. – 7:00 P.M. | Restaurant Panel
Ayr Muir, Clover Food Lab
Josh Gerber, 1369 Coffeehouse
Chef Steve “Nookie” Postal, Commonwealth
7:00 P.M. – 7:45 P.M. | Growing the BoLoCo Empire with John Pepper
Join us for fireside chat with BoLoCo Founder and CEO John Pepper. BoLoCo is a 21-unit company of globally inspired burrito restaurants started in 1993. We look forward to hearing how John grows this empire of fresh food while also keeping to the company’s social philosophy.