Bootstrapping: Doing It Yourself

Program Date

Saturday, March 28, 2009

Event Description

In the best of times, entrepreneurs generally had several options to fund and grow their ventures. But in the current economic environment – with the credit crunch, the withering of investment portfolios, and the deepening recession – many of the traditional options have vanished. Enterprising entrepreneurs are on a new quest to grow their revenues streams without borrowing money or selling equity in this tough economy. One solution is “bootstrapping.”

Come join the Dallas/Fort Worth Chapter of the MIT Enterprise Forum for a five hour event on “Bootstrapping: Doing It Yourself.” The focus will be on starting and growing your own personal business with little or no outside investment. This event will be packed with practical knowledge about bootstrapping in tough times. Topics such as:

How to finance your business when traditional startup money is simply not available
How to generate revenue and sell your products and services with minimal resources
What are the operational challenges, and how to address them? Legal, accounting, benefits.
Who you need to start or grow your business and the available resources you can tap into.

Join us to network with successful entrepreneurs and service providers in the DFW area and get tips on how to bootstrap your business.

Speakers

Alexander Muse is a Dallas based serial entrepreneur with more than a decade of startup experience. His ShopSavvy application for Google’s Android phone won the Google Challenge in 2008. Alexander is actively involved with startups in area and has created Springstage, a network of community catalysts to promote entrepreneurship. See Alexander’s boostrapping presentation on slideshare.net.

Darlene Ryan is the executive director of Tech Fort Worth, a business incubator which helps entrepreneurs commercialize innovative technologies that will impact the environment, empower the community and improve healthcare. Darlene successfully bootstrapped a pharmaceutical manufacturing company. Darlene was named 2003 Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year in Life Sciences for North Texas and a 2004 Leading Woman Entrepreneur of the World.

Dan Owen is a Dallas venture capitalist and entrepreneur with extensive experience building successful digital media and technology businesses. Dan is a General Partner at HO2 Partners, which he co-founded in 1998. Dan is a senior advisor to EmFinders, a cellular-based emergency location service company. He is on the advisory committee for the North Texas Regional Commission for Innovation and Commercialization and is a member of World President’s Organization.

John Willding is an attorney with Haynes and Boone. John has a good deal of experience working with early stage start-up companies. See his presentation on Top 10 Legal Mistakes of Early-Stage Companies (pdf).

Brad Taylor is the principal at Ausum, a technology consulting and investment company. Brad will talk about low cost business, government and technical resources to jumpstart your business. Brad will be joined by Christian Ross who is managing director of TxGeeks.com, a web design and marketing firm. Presentation (~12 MB pdf)

Maryann Nichols is a business development specialist with the Small Business Administration (SBA) of DFW. Maryann is also SCORE liaison representative and has been with the federal service for 29 years.

Location

4835 LBJ Freeway, Suite 1000 (BravoTech)

Time

10am – 3pm

Fee

$25