Short Sweet With Some Meat

Who Am I?

• 1984 Graduate of the College of Business• @pointsnfigures; pointsandfigures.com• Was an Independent Commodity Trader, CME

Board• Co-Founder of Hyde Park Angels in Chicago• Funder, and connector• Idea guy

PAIN POINTS

• What’s a Pain Point?• Can it be solved?• Future Pain Points (no more copycats)• Novel Pain Points• New Pain Points Caused by Innovation• Employment! (Set a goal to work for yourself)

Advice From Twitter and Facebook• Avoid Wall Street (LaSalle St)-Better for Engineers to look somewhere else

@talentedblonde @reformedbroker• Engineering is great training for Entrepreneurs@JLM73TX• Find a great designer (especially mobile)@howardlindzon• Move to Chicago!! @troyhenikoff @rahmemanuel @brucemontgomery

@jbpritzker• Go work for a startup. Opens options for you. @aaronklein• Test the boundaries of knowledge like Claude Shannon @warrenmurdoch• Break stuff and make stuff @nileshtravedi• What skills are in demand today? What matters? Use that answer to evaluate

companies as you search. @coreyferengul• Build your network. Create your own opportunities. @johnkish• The great tech problems aren’t sexy. They transform industry and change the

world. @fredhoch

Chicago, It’s an Innovative Town

• Startups are thriving in Chicago.

Broader Midwest Innovation

• St. Louis, Minneapolis, Madison, Indianapolis, Ann Arbor.

• Great place to start a company• On the QT-Stealth mode is easier• Many customers and Fortune 1000 firms• Easier to bootstrap (Cheaper)• Future (Healthcare and B2B)

Chicago, Hub of Industry

• Rivers, rail, distributed power, modern retailing, modern architecture, atomic age, electronic trading, Second City

• NOW Chicago is synonymous with TECH• Orbitz, CDW, CareerBuilder all Chicago• Groupon, fastest growing company EVER• GrubHub-0 to HUGE in 8 years• Cleversafe-providing some of the biggest storage devices in

the world• Guaranteed Rate-billions in mortgages• Braintree sold for $800 million in 7 years

Great Ecosystems are Entrepreneur Lead

• There is support for entrepreneurs where there wasn’t before

• You can build a business. • There is talent, just have to find it (HINT: A lot

of it is toiling away at HFT firms)• Great talent in marketing, sales, accounting

Infrastructure

• 1871, Technori, Catapult, Junto Institute, Nextspace, TechStars, Impact Engine

• HydeParkAngels, Irish Angels, Harvard Angels, West Suburban Angels, Cornerstone Angels, Firestarters,

• Chicago Innovation Mentors, iBio/Propel, Illinois Technology Association (ITA)

• BuiltInChicago.org

Do You Want It?

• It’s here, it’s free, it’s easy to get.• What are You afraid of?• The time is now.

Time For a Beer (Microbeer Hopefully)Q+A