The NIIC Invests in Downtown Fort Wayne 'River Movement'
IPMG, LLC, a wholly owned for-profit subsidiary of The Northeast Indiana Innovation Center (The NIIC) recently announced investments into two downtown Fort Wayne initiatives—Hop River Brewing Company and Innovative Riverscape Group, LLC. “Investing in entrepreneurs and downtown Fort Wayne are ways that we support the Fort Wayne entrepreneurial community. When we were founded, we were also located downtown, at the former Fort Wayne Chamber of Commerce building. Now we are located just three miles from downtown, and our Innovation Park Campus footprint extends to serve the broader entrepreneurial community
ENTREPRENEURIAL ECOSYSTEMS AND THE MISSING LINK (HINT: IT’S YOU AND IT’S ME!)
Largely because of advancements in technology, almost every known business model is subject to reinvention and innovation. We are seeing more disruption than ever—and new products are coming to market faster than ever. The Internet has revolutionized competition. No longer can businesses rely on a quality product as their only selling point. No business model is really safe from these realities. We continue to see evidence of this in the contraction and demise of the brick & mortar retail sector and dislocations in logisitics and healthcare.
VOICE AND EXIT—WHAT I LEARNED FROM WECO PITCH COMPETITION KEYNOTE
I was inspired by Keynote Speaker Danielle Strachman (General Partner of the 1517 Fund) at our inaugural WEOC Launch Women Pitch Competition on September 23, 2017, at The NIIC. She had a lot of insight into what it takes to start and scale a business, as well as the role venture capital can play in the process.
