Check out Chad's thoughts on the Techstars Chicago '23 program and his Demo Day pitch below!
When I talk about immersionED, I generally talk about the excitement of building something that I'm deeply passionate about that will positively impact students around the world, however, the day-to-day can be quite different. As a startup founder, I make difficult decisions throughout the day and go to bed with the weight of them upon me. As a solo founder, I've found this even more onerous as I lack another founder to turn to as a partner + sounding board. That's why I couldn't be more grateful for my 3-month experience with Techstars Chicago! 🥳 Through their program I not only learned about the do's and don'ts of the startup world (DO: JTBD-style customer discovery, DON'T: walk into glass office walls...iykyk 😆 ), but I also bonded with so many amazing people in the Techstars ecosystem. Now instead of feeling like I need to be fully self-reliant as a solo founder, I have a friend / advisor I can turn to with relevant expertise on every startup challenge I can imagine ever facing. In particular I'd love to give a huge shout out to our fantastic cohort of startups, our dedicated program managers, and our insightful advisors: Andrew Penner Aspen Buckingham Steven Jiang Benjamin Ayd Kevin Corbett Clay Curran Lance Hackney Oladiran Johnson Myles Jackson Joshua Silets Gabriel Bryk Farhan Junaid Christal Hector Nathan Youssef Reece Franklin Patrick McKernin Joseph Suta Edward Aguilar Sahan Reddy Eric Yan William C. Stanford, PhD Craig Silver Nat Froikin Austin Yancey, CEC, CCE, PCEC Neal Sales-Griffin Brad Schnitzer Lilliana Robinson Sophie Davis Ferrona Lie Kate Lee Patrick Flynn Logan LaHive Dan Cummings Mark Achler Paul Decker While the program officially concluded a month ago with Techstars Chicago '23 Demo Day (click below to see my elevator pitch from Demo Day!), I still speak regularly with my cohort, advisors, and program members and can't wait to reunite with them in a few weeks for some skiing and co-working in Tahoe! 🎿 Thank you Techstars for providing me with my startup support system and so much more! -Chad P.S. If you'd like to see the full presentation including the Q&A with the always incredible Rebecca Sholiton Kahnweiler, managing partner of LongJump, please DM me!
