FastPitch to Culminate Today

Bryan Kipke — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 11:31:31 +0000

Today is the final day of the Fast Pitch competition in Nashville.

This event started with Pitch Camp which was a one day seminar on how to effectively pitch your idea. It was a great day that had two very dynamic speakers. The first was Dr. Jeff Stamp of University of North Dakota who pitched the idea of Baked Lay’s to Lays Potato Chip company. He spoke mostly of refining an idea to a 60 pitch that can be done simply and understandably. If a 6th grader sitting at the back of the room can’t repeat what your idea is at the end of your pitch you need to refine it more.

The second was Scott Schwertly of Ethos3.com and the newly launched Slide Magnet.com. He put on a dynamic presentation on how to present in Powerpoint without standard background, lists, or clipart. To see some of his Powerpoint presentations check out his Ethos3 site. They are very good.

That is me in the back left corner with the green shirt.

The second part of the event was the Open Pitch where small businesses and entrepreneurs could “try out” their pitch and get critiqued on it. The top ideas and pitches get their day in the sun in front of local and national businessmen, venture capitalists, and angel investors today, March 31st at 5:30 pm central time at Belmont University.

Can’t attend, or are not in the Nashville area, no problem. The event will be streamed live on the Fast Pitch Blog.

This is a great event and one that any small business or start-up should pay attention to. There is a lot of great information and I think everyone can get something out of what they see. Hope to see you there!

Welcome to the Nashville Startup Blog

Bryan Kipke — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 15:30:51 +0000

Welcome everyone to the new Nashville Tennessee Startup Blog. My name is Bryan Kipke. I have been a teacher for the last 4 years in Nashville public schools, as well as an assistant Football coach. I love to coach and teach but the public schools just weren’t working out.

About a year and a half ago I started looking into different opportunities. I always felt as if I had an entrepreneurial, and inventor’s spirit. Instead of taking the plunge and starting my own business I went to Taiwan with my wife to teach English. The intention was to stay for a year and have that be my last year of teaching for a little while.

That year turned into 6 months when I got deported. I went from having a nice easy life in tropical Taiwan to being dumped back into Nashville with just a 14 day notice. I did not know what I was going to do. After a month of developing websites and selling them, Spring Stage approached me to write for the Nashville Startup. So after a lot of hard work I became an entrepreneur.

I am not really sure when I became an entrepreneur. It might have been during all those books I read. It might have been in Taiwan when I really started to buy and sell websites. It might have been out of need when I finally arrived in Nashville and had to make money. But I am happy with how things turned out and I am glad to offer my experiences to others.

Nashville Startup.com offers me a great opportunity to share what is going on in Nashville. I really believe that Nashville is underrated as a city. There is a lot more here than just Country Music, and I hope to bring that to this blog. It is an exciting city and there are many opportunities to be had.

Please subscribe and I will give you as much information that I can find on things going on in Nashville. With that said there is no way that I can be successful without your help. If you know of anything that is happening in Nashville that may deserve some exposure on this site let me know and I will be happy to interview, share, or just plug the next best thing.

Send me a message, or as we get things set up you can skype me at coachkip or hit me up via Facebook.

Until the next post, happy inventing, smooth sailing, and y’all come back to get your twang on!

SpringStage is a network of people interested in promoting entrepreneurship and startups. We call these people catalysts. Once part of the SpringStage team, these catalysts will attempt to promote a sense of community around entrepreneurship in their local communities. You don’t need to move to San Francisco to live a startup lifestyle, you can become part of an entrepreneurial community in your own hometown. Apply to join SpringStage.