Research: The First Right Steps For Start-Ups
Make sure you’ve got a valid problem and an economically-viable solution, and then to test and refine that solution with users.
Start-Up Brand: Love Me or Hate Me, Just Don’t Ignore me
A good start-up brand must stand for something and reject other things to the point that they attract the attention of a polarized market
Social Entrepreneurs Vs. Entrepreneurs: What’s the Difference?
Do social entrepreneurs even care about making revenue and turning a profit?
Nick Kokonas Talks Ticketing, Powerpoint, and Ramen
A full video recap of his Keynote
May 2012: Technori Pitch Recap
As always, the show kicked off with a great keynote speaker, and the following pitches didn’t skip a beat.
UX: Beyond a Beautiful UI
What do you think of when you hear the term “UX?” Do you think wireframes and software interface design? It’s true having designers to translate marketing requests into visual representations for your developers is a competitive advantage, but user experience design is more than just visual. A Systematic Approach to Empathy In order to truly be…
Failure: An Entrepreneur’s Life
“This is like you’re holding a loaded gun to my head and you’re promising that you won’t pull the trigger,” I said to one of our lead investors with regard to their financing agreement which penalized the company’s success at best and, at worst, sealed our fate. He reassured me that the investment group was…
Startup Weekend: From Idea To Action in 54 Hours
As an organizer for the next Startup Weekend in Chicago, I’m passionate about bringing together people from a wide array of different backgrounds to support them in building great things. If you can imagine being able to take a great idea and spin it around into actionable next steps towards a viable business within 54…
Just the Beginning: Lessons From a Hackathon
It’s Saturday afternoon, and amid cold pizza, micro brews, and half-eaten donuts, teams of three or four sit in front of laptops, heads poking up intermittently to scan a whiteboard full of vision statements, UX questions, and feature lists. This is the scene of the first hackathon at the newly opened 1871, the co-working-space-meets-tech-startup-beehive and Code Academy…
Technori Pitch Announces Restaurant Innovator Nick Kokonas as Keynote Speaker
Photo credit: Taylor Castle Photography We’re thrilled to announce the keynote speaker of the next Technori Pitch on May 29, 2012 will be Nick Kokonas, the business visionary behind Chicago’s haute cuisine standard bearers Alinea, Next, and The Aviary. Foodies across the country are well-acquainted with the iconic names of Alinea, Next, and The Aviary.…