FounderBar chance for entrepreneurs to mix

MAKING CONNECTIONS: Shane Lennon, center, a Betaspring mentor and VP of marketing for DimentionU, speaks with 121 Nexus’ Foster Sayers and Albert Ho. / PBN PHOTO/STEPHANIE ALVAREZ EWENS
MAKING CONNECTIONS: Shane Lennon, center, a Betaspring mentor and VP of marketing for DimentionU, speaks with 121 Nexus’ Foster Sayers and Albert Ho. / PBN PHOTO/STEPHANIE ALVAREZ EWENS

Amid exposed brick walls, black-leather chairs and sofas, and tables dotted with laptops, the Founders League launched its new back-to-back monthly collaboration opportunity – FreeFriday and FounderBar – on Feb. 22.
The discussion “huddles” planned around experienced entrepreneurs focused on raising capital, knowing your customer and surviving as the solo founder of a business. But the huddles continued and expanded as afternoon slid into evening.
In the high-ceiling Founders League space on Chestnut Street in Providence, groups of three and four entrepreneurs merged and shifted in an animated trading of business cards and ideas for sharing skills.
One group included Dave Counts, whose Providence-based company, countswebdesign.com, does website design, photography, video and graphic design; Peter Haas of Olneyville, executive director of Appropriate Infrastructure Development Group, who operates a nonprofit in Haiti; and David Brown of Wakefield, who runs mountain-op.com, a sort of Priceline for outdoor gear that raises money for outdoor and environmental nonprofits.
“I’m here because I’m starting a new nonprofit named Ethoco,” said Haas. “It’s crowd-funding of small mortgages to get people out of tents and into houses in Haiti. There are 200,000 people in tents in Haiti.”
The large number of Haitians still in tents three years after a devastating earthquake rocked the island means Haas travels back-and-forth from his Rhode Island base.
“I came to start co-working here, to have people to bounce ideas off and possibly to contract work to,” Haas said. “I could work at home, but I wouldn’t run into people who are doing software development.”
FreeFriday from noon to 6 p.m. is a chance to try out co-working at the Founders League, a partnership to help facilitate expansion of Rhode Island’s entrepreneurial environment.
Co-working is sharing 24/7 office space, Wi-Fi, printers and access to the entrepreneur community. The cost for as-available space is $150 a month, said Allan Tear, a managing partner of the Founders League and one of the founders of the startup accelerator Betaspring, which is located in the same building. The 50 or so entrepreneurs at the debut of FreeFriday and FounderBar are just a portion of an increasingly thriving community in Rhode Island, said Tear.
“The entrepreneurship community has evolved,” said Tear. “What’s different about the Founders League and these events like FreeFriday and FounderBar is it’s not so much mentoring as it is entrepreneur-to-entrepreneur. We recognize the value of the peer community. Everyone has knowledge they can bring to the table.”
The Founders League is a partnership of Betaspring, the Greater Providence Chamber of Commerce, Brown University and the University of Rhode Island. It builds on a program initially launched by the Rhode Island Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship.
FounderBar presenter Wayne Losey of Dynamo Development Labs found out quickly at the debut event he had to change his plans for his “huddle” titled “Visual Storytelling for Startups.”
“This is very different because I came prepared to be a presenter and very quickly it turned into a conversation,” Losey said. “It was because of the high quality of people and their knowledge.”
The 3-to-6 p.m. FounderBar overflowed its set time frame and as 6:30 p.m. arrived and passed, more than 20 people continued to huddle with Losey and others to converse, share ideas, eat, and sip beer and wine.
Kay McGowan, founder of the e-commerce business A Curated World, which features products from artisans around the globe, found valuable ideas in the visual storytelling conversation, because much of her work is visual.
As an alumna of Betaspring, she’s had support for her startup launched about a year ago. But McGowan said the discussion with other entrepreneurs made her realize the value of the Founders League community. “What’s different about this is it’s entrepreneurs with people from a lot of different sectors,” McGowan said. “It’s not just about being a tech startup. It’s about being a founder.”
A managing partner of Betaspring and co-founder of both Betaspring and the Founders League, Owen Johnson said the startup community built upon RICIE has reached the next level.
“We’re serving the same community and now we have a critical mass,” Johnson said. “Now is the time to create entrepreneur density.”
As more startups launch and stay in Rhode Island, the entrepreneurial community becomes more valuable with the sharing of skills and vision, he said.
“Right now we have about 30 startups with the Founders League and another 15 downstairs with Betaspring,” Johnson said.
Betaspring has helped launch about 70 startups in three years, said Tear.
About one-third are expected to be high-growth, one-third expected to reach a sustainable level and one-third are expected to fail, according to the Betaspring website. Even those entrepreneurs who fail are likely to get back into the entrepreneurial community, according to Betaspring.
Rhode Island College student Charice Lim is a graphic-design major who came to FounderBar to get some idea of how she might focus her interest in working as a user interface or user-experience designer.
“Listening to the topics helped me realize it is important to know who you are and who your customer is. ‘Know thyself’ is really important, especially for a startup,” said Lim.
While she’s not sure yet exactly what she will do when she graduates in the spring, or if she will look for corporate work, she’s gotten some perspective on the options.
“The appeal of a startup is you’re part of something immediately,” said Lim. •

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