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Hi there,
This Friday is First Friday at Gravitate—the entrepreneurial center of gravity in downtown Des Moines! Grab your laptop and work alongside us for an hour or for the day (its free!). Its a great opportunity to be inspired, meet new people and strengthen your ties to the community. We'll also have open office hours with experts from our community and end with the Gravitate Community Happy Hour (presented by CenturyLink) starting at 4:30.
Once again this week our friends at EntreFEST in Iowa City are supporting the Welch Avenue Weekly (yeah! Thanks EntreFEST!) and they wrote a post on exactly why you, loyal readers, should be part of the event:
Today’s the Day!
If you haven’t yet, register for EntreFEST today to save $100 on your Full-Access Pass. Use the code WelchAve to save $50 off the already-discounted price. This exclusive (and ridiculously great!) offer goes away at midnight tomorrow (April 30).
Top 10 Events at EntreFEST 2015 for Welch Avenue readers:
- Ben Milne’s talk at the Opening Session
- The Opening Party & Ignite sponsored by the Iowa Startup Accelerator and curated by John Schnipkoweit, Nextstep.io
- Geoff Wood’s conversation on storytelling and startup community building
- Every event Sarah Kunst speaks at (Marc Andreessen named her one of his ‘Unknown Rockstars in Tech’)
- TAI’s Tech Town Hall and Statewide TechBrew
- Wade Arnold’s ‘Built in Iowa’ story
- John Pappajohn’s Fireside Chat
- Mentor & Investor Speed Dating hosted by Emerge
- Accelerator Speed Dating with the Global Accelerator Network
- Lessons in R&D from the ISU Research Park
- The Startup Iowa Champions Meetup
- Every session in SoftLayer’s Founders Track
Ok, yes, this did end up being a Big 12 List instead of a top ten...we couldn’t resist! And there are 100 more speakers, sessions, events and parties we hate to leave out and that you definitely won’t want to miss (i.e. Jay Byers talk on the role of economic development, Trevor Owens sharing Lean Startup Machine, Jon Thompson’s digital signage project, core conversations with key staff at TechStars, Facebook, Farm Bureau, PearDeck, EDC, and so many others)!
And did we mention Seth Godin will give the closing keynote?
EntreFEST is off the hook this year, and you need to be there. There’s no better way to connect with the statewide startup community and fuel your company for the next year with new inspiration, partners, resources, and like-minded friends.
See the full schedule and register online today!
(Thanks again, EntreFEST for supporting our newsletter and the Iowa entrepreneurial community)
Best,
Geoff
 
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Earlier this week, Ankeny-based 1Comm Medical closed a $2.5 million investment round led by Next Level Ventures, according to The Des Moines Register. Founders of the two-year-old startup created a cloud-based portal that remotely connects doctors and nurses with their patients who may be testing their blood at home. The Register reports that “1Comm had about $1.2 million in sales last year and has about 1,000 patients using its service.”
Recently Corridor startup founders shared the lessons they’ve learned when it comes to raising capital with We Create Here. Michal Eynon-Lynch of Pear Deck, AJ Nelson of ClusterFlunk and Pi, Alec Whitters of Higher Learning Technologies and Roby Miller of TelePharm each contributed. Biggest lessons learned included everything from being selective about who you choose as investors in your company to being open to advice or help form members of the community.
Last week University of Iowa student entrepreneurs pitched their best ideas to Daymond John, the founder of clothing company FUBU and an investor on the popular ABC reality show “Shark Tank.” According to the Iowa City Press-Citizen, “Andrew Shao, of Ames, creator of the Test Buddy desk extender — a device that adds extra desk space for test taking — took first place and walked away with a $2,000 contribution.” Almost a dozen Midwest distributors have already agreed to sell the product.
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