FoundersForge

Join us for some of these amazing events coming up! 👋

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Surprise!🥳 Noah Kagan is the 2024 Startup Mountain Summit Keynote Speaker!

If you know anything about the startup community, you’ve probably heard of Noah Kagan. Noah was the 30th employee at Facebook, the 4th employee at Mint, and is now the CEO of Appsumo. Along with this, Noah just released his best-selling book on all platforms, Million Dollar Weekend. Noah has a youtube channel with over 1 million subscribers and millions of followers across other platforms. Most importantly, he’s an advocate for entrepreneurs across the world and a huge supporter of solopreneurship.

If you want to learn more about Noah, see the full lineup, or learn more about 2024 Startup Mountain Summit, click the link below! Early Bird tickets will be ending soon, so grab your tickets before the price goes up! 🥳

https://startupmountainsummit.com/

This year’s Startup Pitch Competition was a massive success. With over 200+ attendees, a panel of accomplished judges, and a great selection of pitchers, this event was easily the biggest in its eight-year history! For those of you who weren’t able to make it, here’s a quick recap of our incredible pitchers!

Here's some highlights 👇

Logan Craft took home the $10,000 with his idea for PuttPal, a software that simplifies mini-golf scorekeeping with real-time tracking and course syncing, enhancing the golfing experience through its innovative app.

Ana Rockhold and Brayden Yonts took home 2nd place with Shelfie. Shelfie modernizes retail marketing by connecting gig workers to promote brands in-store and online, providing measurable results based on sales performance.

Rounding out the podium was Justin Beavers. Justin founded NutriSprout, which introduces advanced urban farming techniques like hydroponics and vertical gardening to maximize crop yields in urban areas, which would help address food security and sustainability in our area!

To read about our other incredible pitchers, go to our ASA page linked below!

https://www.appalachianstartupalliance.com/join?invitation_token=875ab282139ea12d7fd7820a616ae91cb4c49d08-c663077f-dfc8-48ad-a4af-695551dfd748

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We want to give a HUGE shoutout to everyone who came out and supported The Pitch last night (even with the threat of rain😉). The sponsors, volunteers, and most importantly, our pitchers made this our best pitch night yet. We appreciate all the hard work it took to make it a success! Check out our winners below!🧡

- PuttPal | 1st Place Prize - $10,000
- Shelfie | 2nd Place Prize - $1,000
- Nutri Sprout | 3rd Place Prize - $500
- PuttPal | Crowd Favorite - Spark Co-working membership

More pictures and videos to come😉 If you have pictures or videos you’d like to share from last night, tag us in them!!

Due to weather concerns earlier in the day, The Pitch Startup Competition has been pushed back to 7 p.m. this evening (doors open at 6:30 p.m.). Please spread the word to family and friends who are planning to attend. The team at FoundersForge appreciates your understanding. We look forward to seeing you tonight!

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Meet the judges for this year's pitch competition! We're very excited to have this incredible group of entrepreneurs join us :)

The Pitch Startup Competition:
Mon, Jun 17 | TVA Credit Union Ballpark | 6 p.m.

Get your tickets today!

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/the-pitch-startup-pitch-competition-tickets-788428840887?utm-campaign=social&utm-content=attendeeshare&utm-medium=discovery&utm-term=listing&utm-source=cp&aff=ebdsshcopyurl

Special Message from Executive Director of FoundersForge, David Nelson below 👇

Starting in 2016, a group of local Northeast Tennessee entrepreneurs got together to jumpstart our region's startup ecosystem. There had been events in the past, but we knew the time was right for our region to be a leader in startup activity in the Southeast. By leveraging our experiences in some of the best ecosystems across the country, we kickstarted the community with a pitch event: Pitches and Pints.

The tremendous success of this event launched our region forward, and we continued to build events, workshops, programs, and new opportunities for entrepreneurs in our region. Then in January of 2020, we launched FoundersForge, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit dedicated to the underdog entrepreneurs in the Appalachian Highlands.

Today, FoundersForge provides 88% of all high-growth startup programming and events in the region of Northeast Tennessee. If you include events and programs focused on small businesses, we still provide 57% of all entrepreneurship activity. Back when we started, we began talking about entrepreneurship as a focus of economic development. Today, this is a regular occurrence in our region.

The Pitch, a shark tank-like event now gives out a $10k prize and hosts over 250 attendees. FoundersForge has also put our region on the startup ecosystem map with the Startup Mountain Summit, the premiere conference for early-stage startups in the Southeast.

The ecosystem continues to grow. Other organizations and startup supporters are actively working to help build a more vibrant ecosystem across the region and we continue to support everything we can. CreatorCon, Hatch, and the Women’s Business Center are all milestone events, programs, and initiatives to help our ecosystem to thrive.

However, there are difficult challenges in front of our startup community.

Our region lacks some key resources that you find in other places. Currently, we still lack a true accelerator program to help companies achieve rapid growth. Too often, organizations launch programs that do not invest in the startups. They offer access or connections without following the successful model that has built the world’s best accelerators. This has proven to be a failed model, yet the true accelerators are still thriving.

Our region now has access to capital in the innovative InvestTN program. However, our startups lack access to early-stage investors that startups need to qualify for this program. The ecosystem must unlock the local capital while forming new opportunities for our startups to thrive. The local InvestTN $4M fund could provide investment for 40-80 startups in our region, but very few companies currently qualify. We need to help our startups get capital-ready while doubling the size of our ecosystem, so our region does not miss out on this opportunity.

Luckily, the work by FoundersForge is just beginning. Very soon, we will be announcing something that we have been working on since the very beginning of our founding. This will impact our entire region, and we can’t wait to tell you about it.

Stay Tuned, David.

Last night, we celebrated the end of our BIGGEST Startup Bootcamp cohort ever! It has been so much fun watching these startups grow, learn, and challenge themselves over the past few months, and we're so proud of the accomplishments they have made. Please join us in welcoming 15 new startups to our region!

Here's our outlook for June! Hope to see you at some of these great events. 🤝

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The Pitch is not just a pitch competition, it's an opportunity to show your support for local startups and businesses across our region like Green Llama!

Since winning The Pitch in 2022, Green Llama has expanded into 90+ stores across the U.S. and continues to grow exponentially. All Green Llama products are still made in downtown Johnson City and they've set an excellent example for innovation in our region. 💚

Come see the future of entrepreneurship June 17th! Tickets available here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/788428840887?aff=oddtdtcreator

William Warren is an author, speaker, illustrator and entrepreneur who has spent his career using visuals to help communicate ideas and tell stories. His company, The Sketch Effect, creates live sketches and animations to make memorable recordings of events, meetings, and more! The Sketch Effect has worked with BIG clients across the world including Coke, Mailchimp, TikTok, Delta, and many more.

We can't wait to hear from William and the rest of the lineup🤝 See you at the Summit!

Early Bird Tickets on sale for a limited time here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/785421907067?aff=oddtdtcreator

Here's some history of the pitching competitions we've done in the past. The best is yet to come! 👊

The Pitch Startup Competition is Monday, June 17th @ TVA Credit Union Ballpark @ 6 p.m. RSVP below!

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/the-pitch-startup-pitch-competition-tickets-788428840887

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FoundersForge is happy to announce an InvestTN Live Info-Session, led by with Sync.Space ! This discussion is designed for individuals who are applying or considering applying for InvestTN programs. These programs offer funding, networking opportunities, expert guidance, and discounted resources to support the growth and success of startups and venture capital funds based in Tennessee.

Register with the link below! 🔗

https://www.appalachianstartupalliance.com/c/events/invest-tn-virtual-event-asa-ec4666

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The Pitch is a great opportunity for our community to show out, support, and celebrate our local startups! Trust us, our area and its people have some game-changing ideas to share. You don't want to miss it! 👋

The Pitch Startup Competition is Monday, June 17th at 6 p.m. RSVP below!

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/the-pitch-startup-pitch-competition-tickets-788428840887

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Meet Steven Carse! Steven is the co-founder of King Of Pops, one of Atlanta, GA's most beloved brands. He was named one of Atlanta Journal Constitution’s Most Admired CEOs in 2017 and was included in Georgia Trend’s 40 Under 40 list in 2012. Today, King of Pops is the largest cart-based business in the U.S, and a $10 million company that sells not just ice pops but Christmas trees, cocktails (a.k.a. pop-tails), farm produce, and more. You won't want to miss this!

Get your tickets at the link below!
https://startupmountainsummit.com/

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As promised, here is the 2024 Startup Mountain Summit Speaker Lineup🎉 We can’t wait to introduce each speaker to you over the next few months! In the meantime, see if you can guess our keynote speaker. Throw your guesses in the comments!🙌

- He has created 8 multi-million dollar businesses
- Early employee at Facebook & Mint
- #1 Best selling author on Amazon & New York Times

Full Lineup👇

Top Row:
Keynote Speaker (Announcement Soon) 😎

Middle Row:
- William Warren | CEO of the
- David Nelson | Executive Director Founder of Qurbie
- Asia Orangio | CEO of DemandMaven

Bottom Row
- Lauren Glass | Co-Founder of
- Steven Carse | Co-Founder of
- Guy Yalif | CEO of Intellimize
- Jeff Hilimire | CEO of Purpose Group

Early Bird Tickets on sale: Early Bird Tickets are on sale now: https://startupmountainsummit.com/

Just a reminder, Founders After 5 is at 5:30 today! Meet us over at Watauga Brewing in Johnson City for networking and drinks. We'd love to hear your startup story!👋

RSVP Here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/785262570487?aff=oddtdtcreator

The 2024 Startup Mountain Summit speaker lineup is dropping later this week and we have some BIG names on the list. In the meantime, early bird tickets are on sale for a limited time and you can grab them below👇

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/785421907067?aff=oddtdtcreator

May is going to be a BUSY month for startups. If you are looking to get plugged in to the community, sign up to one of these events! Hope to see you there👍 All event info and signup information below!

https://linktr.ee/foundersforge

Have you got an early-stage startup or an idea you'd like to pitch?👋 FoundersForge is giving away 10k in cash prizes—Just fill out the application below and bring your best pitch to the plate! Need training? We will host several training sessions before the event so you can be prepared on pitch night!

If you have any other questions about pitching, feel free to DM us!

Application to pitch: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1EGGeda7rM8UaI6BxkNd3v4iUkMF5_HAzcEIN6g9ZNyc/edit

Introducing Part 1 of our 24' Startup Bootcamp cohort 👏 That's right... only HALF of our incredible boot-campers.

In just two weeks, these founders have already blown us away with their drive and passion for their startups. We're thrilled by the impact they're making and proud to say: You're looking at the future of entrepreneurship in our region.🌟

We will be highlighting each boot camper and their businesses soon! Part 2 up next!

The Pitch is much more than just a pitch competition, it’s a time when everyone comes together, supports our startups, and showcases to the community the innovation we have happening here. So how can you help? Show up and cheer!📣 By attending this event, you are fueling our ecosystem and supporting local founders. Together, we can make a positive impact in the community, and it all starts with showing up.

RSVP link: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/788428840887?aff=oddtdtcreator

The past two weeks have been CRAZY at FoundersForge, but it's rewarding to see the energy and support system building in our community.🧡

Last Friday, FoundersForge attended the ETSU iBUCS competition and our Program Director, Adriana Dew, sat on the judging panel for 10 student-led startups. Earlier this week, we welcomed 15 startups to our bootcamp and hosted a welcome party at . We capped the week off yesterday at Amplify423 for our bootstrapping/investment session with .

If you are interested in joining our community, head over to the link in the bio. We'd love to hear about your journey👋

Last night, FoundersForge welcomed 15 startups to Bootcamp!🥳 In the next 10 weeks, these founders will validate their ideas, learn to pitch, and launch their businesses successfully.

Help us celebrate the BIGGEST Startup Bootcamp cohort to date! We are super excited to watch these startups learn and grow together, and we're proud of the commitment they are making.

Want to support our Bootcampers? We ask that you be their customer, offer feedback, and share their stories throughout the program!👍 We will be posting more about our cohort and their businesses in the next few weeks!

Surprise🥳 The Pitch is coming back to the ballpark!⚾️

Head out to TVA Credit Union Stadium (Home of the JC Doughboys) on June 17th for FoundersForge's seventh annual Startup Pitch Competition. Come see the region's top startups pitch their ideas for a chance to win cash prizes for their business. Bring your family and friends to cheer on our local entrepreneurship community and see the future of our region. Admission is free but RSVP is required! Free food & drinks will also be provided.

Head over to the link below for RSVP information🔗 We can't wait to see you there!

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/788428840887?aff=oddtdtcreator

"Spring" Into April with these great entrepreneur-focused events! This month has a little something for everyone. Come join the community🧡 RSVP + event information in the bio 🔗

Also, we have a few announcements coming later this month for 2 BIG events!

Application due today 3/19 for startup bootcamp at FoundersForge

https://myfoundersforge.com/bootcamp/?mc_cid=8a20ee72fd&mc_eid=08da8b0aea

Big Announcement for Amplify423🥳 FoundersForge Executive Director, David Nelson, will be speaking at Spark Plaza on April 11th! If you are torn between bootstrapping or the investment route, this talk will explain the options ahead! Everyone is invited & lunch will be provided🤝

More information + RSVP in the bio 🔗

Big things are happening in our region! Yesterday, we hosted the Inspire Sure Summit and introduced our plans to help the recovery community reintegrate into the workforce through entrepreneurship. Earlier in the week, Spark Women hosted their first lunch meetup of the year with a record attendance and a fantastic panel of speakers!

We are super appreciative of the community, our partners, and everyone who make these events possible!😊

Go check out our upcoming events at the link in our bio! We’d love for you to join us!🧡