We’re proud to announce the newest members of the Philly Startup Leaders leadership team.

These leaders will join the current team for a transition period of 3-6 months. Then some of the Philly Startup Leaders founders will “retire” to the Board of Directors while the new leaders take over their roles and help the outgoing folks change their adult diapers (growing “startup old” isn’t all it’s cracked up to be).

The new leaders were selected from people who stepped forward in the PSL Next leadership search. They were interviewed by some combination of the founders and board members. Then they met with their future team members and decided that they wanted to help lead PSL into the future. Everyone who applied to PSL Next will continue to be involved in PSL whether in an ongoing role or on a project-to-project basis.

This is the first of what should be many successful leadership changes over the years. As with any mature organization, the founders can’t lead forever. We see it as our job to pass on our vision and values and to let people much smarter than us take the organization to the next level.

So here is the new leadership team:

President: Jameson Detweiler
Events Director: Gloria Bell
Tech Director: Cody Ray
Hacker-in-Residence: Josiah Kiehl
Membership Director: Jameson Detweiler
Finance and Operations Director: Matt Owens
Marketing Director: OPEN (Aaron McLean will continue to fill in the meantime)

And the current Board of Directors:
Chris Cera, Chairman
Doug Bellenger
Jameson Detweiler
Colin Evans
Blake Jennelle
Neil Kleinman
Aaron McLean
Tracey Welson-Rossman

Please congratulate and welcome our awesome new leadership team. Here’s to the next chapter in the remarkable history of the Philadelphia startup community!

Not everyone is fortunate enough to be technologist or have a co-founder with a tech background. Many of our region’s entrepreneurs get stuck in a quandary – how do I find a developer, how do I manage a development project, how do I choose the best platform to develop my ideas, how do I evaluate talent, and the list goes on.

Not everyone is fortunate enough to be technologist or have a co-founder with a tech background. Many of our region’s entrepreneurs get stuck in a quandary – how do I find a developer, how do I manage a development project, how do I choose the best platform to develop my ideas, how do I evaluate talent, and the list goes on.

PSL is working on a series of discussions lead by entrepreneurs, CIO’s and CTO’s who can answer these technology development questions.

This first one, on June 14th from 6:30-8:30 at the Baiada Center on Drexel’s Campus, will be lead by Niraj Patel (see bio below).

Niraj will begin tackling this issue by starting out with the simple question – What does your customer need? The first step in any technology development project is ensuring you are building the right product.  Niraj will lead an interactive discussion that will give you insight into solving your most critical technology development issues by focusing on your customers first.

Click Here to Register – Act Now – Space Limited!

Niraj Patel

Patel currently serves as President of ISGN, a Partner of Witmer LLC and Managing Director for the Musser Consulting Group. As a multi-national/cross border expert, he has a strong client base in India and has completed large scale projects bridging nations. Patel works closely with his diverse clients including single product firms, medium size firms targeting rapid growth and international conglomerates. It’s their potential that drives Patel to engage their leaders to conceptualize and generate innovative ideas, analyze business strategies, and develop effective solutions, processes and procedures to produce streamlined profitable operations. His approach assists organizations accelerate growth and realize their fullest potential.

Previously Patel served as a founding member and Executive Vice President/CIO for GMAC Commercial Mortgage.  As a member of the Executive Committee, he was a key contributor to the organization’s international growth by consistently delivering double-digit net income growth reaching as high as $341.6 million annually, increasing loan originations from $2 to $29.9 billion, building loan servicing from $5 to $276 billion.

Recognized as an award winning innovator and viewed as one of the leading technologists of his generation, Patel serves on numerous boards and panels, speaks at industry conferences and has been quoted by The Wall Street Journal and numerous commercial real estate, finance and technology publications.

Patel’s community and professional memberships have included the Microsoft Executive Circle; Eastern Technology Council; the Board of Advisors of the Marketing Center at the Temple University Fox School of Business; the NPower CIO Advisory Council. and His executive board experience includes: the Mortgage Industry Standards Maintenance Organization (MISMO) Board of Directors,  EnableUS, Epitome Systems, MortgageRamp, Deskom and GTEL.

He is a Wharton certified manager and has a BBA in Finance and MIS from Temple University. Patel resides in suburban Philadelphia with his family.

We are incredibly excited for Steve Welch's Entrepreneurs Unplugged Session. Steve will be leading our group through the characteristics of a successful startup entrepreneur and instructing us in trait development as a success predictor.

Register today to reserve a FREE seat for Entrepreneurs Unplugged v. VIII

Entrepreneurs Unplugged Series continues on Wed, June 16th at 7 pm.
Featured Entrepreneur: Steve Welch of Dreamit Ventures, "We are All Born Entrepreneurs", Philadelphia's Entrepreneur of the Year, 2008
Location: Hamilton Hall 320 South Broad Street (map – http://tr.im/hHpj )
Cosponsored by the Corzo Center for the Creative Economy at The University of the Arts.

Presentation Topic: The Traits of Success and How to Develop Them.

Description: Steve Welch is in a unique position. As a successful biotech/engineering entrepreneur, analytical genius, angel investor, incubator founder and author, he has made a study out of what it takes to succeed in the startup world. Steve examined the characteristics of success while interviewing and profiling over 100 hyper-achieving businessmen and women for his novel "We Are All Born Entrepreneurs". His findings are remarkable and you should know about them if you want to succeed in your venture.  Join us to learn, be inspired and challenged while putting yourself in the position to attain success.

Register today to reserve your free seat!

Thanks to our friends at the Corzo Center of the University of Arts for providing such an extraordinary venue to showcase our local talent. Video production by Paul Shannon of Real Arts Media. Tickets are free thanks to TicketLeap.

Video interviews with 2010 Entrepreneur Expo exhibitors are now online!

Apply for President and All Executive Roles

Philly Startup Leaders is now accepting applications for every key position in the organization.

This includes President, Vice President, Events Director, Technology Director, Marketing Director, Operations Director, Membership Director, Finance Director and new positions we need and don’t have.

We hope you’ll apply.

This not a third world coup (we’d love to be important enough for one of those).

It’s exactly what a thriving movement like ours should do at this moment in its life.
 

Why PSL needs fresh blood

PSL was created from fresh blood in a stale city. It was created by young entrepreneurs crazy enough to believe that they could build their dreams here. That Philly could become the next great startup city.

As a community, we’ve crushed it. No one in Philly feels lonely anymore when they launch a startup. No one struggles to find other entrepreneurs like them. No one wonders whether it’s possible to succeed here.

We have more members, events and internal entrepreneurship than ever before. Over 650 people participate in our email lists, we host over 30 yearly events, and traditions like PSL poker, Starter Stories and PSL Vice Squad were all started and run spontaneously by members.

Now it’s time for more fresh blood to transform this city all over again. It’s time for each of us who has built PSL to make room for the people who will grow this community in ways we could never imagine.
 
Continue Reading »

April 14 is an evening not to be missed.

Good Company Ventures is hosting its Philly launch event about social entrepreneurship and mission-driven investment. Then the party moves to Ladder 15 for the Philly Startup Leaders happy hour. It’s going to be a heckuva night.

Here are the where and when for both events…

Good Company Ventures Philadelphia Launch
April 14 @ 5:30pm
Blank Rome Conference Center
One Logan Square – 130 North 18th Street, Phila, PA 19103

Philly Startup Leaders Happy Hour
April 14 @ 7:30pm
Ladder 15 – 1528 Sansom Street, Philadelphia
(215) 964-9755
http://www.ladder15philly.com

Can’t wait to see you at both events!

THE GIGABIT GENIUS GRANT
More than $10,000 for one extraordinary gigabit project

Gigabit connectivity will change the world. Think of it like the jump from dialup modems to current broadband speeds repeated all over again, with today’s connections feeling like dialup modems before the end of this decade.

So what new technologies will ultra-high speed connectivity enable? And how will that technology revolutionize our lives?
That’s what the world is waiting on you to figure out.

The Gigabit Genius Grant is a competition designed to spark a worldwide conversation about practical applications for ultra-high bandwidth technologies. It was inspired by Google’s fiber for communities project and funded by tech, business and civic leaders in the City of Philadelphia – people who love technology and believe deeply in its potential to change the world.

We are giving at least $10,000 to the most promising gigabit project. These ideas must be submitted on Gigabit Philly but can come from anyone, anywhere in the world.

How the Gigabit Genius Grant works

Here’s how we’re organizing the Gigabit Genius Grant:

1. People like you submit project ideas to Gigabit Philly
2. Users choose the finalists by voting on their favorite projects
3. A panel of technology experts, civic leaders, entrepreneurs and investors evaluate the finalists for social impact, viability and community excitement
4. The winning project receives the $10,000+ Gigabit Genius Grant for use in bringing their project to life
5. We will also award a $1,000 Popular Genius Grant to the project with the most votes, regardless of panel opinion or use of funds.

The deadline for project submissions is April 30, 2010.

Note that our deadline is after Google’s deadline for their fiber for communities submissions. That’s because we see Google’s project as the beginning rather than the end of the movement to accelerate gigabit adoption worldwide.

Submit your projects early and often

You can submit as many ideas as you like, and we encourage you to submit them early and often. That way your ideas have more time to earn votes. So if you have an idea, now is the best time to get started.

Get started – Visit Gigabit Philly now

Philly Startup Leaders present: The Second Annual Entrepreneur Expo.

Website: http://expo.phillystartupleaders.org

Want to attend as a guest/attendee? Click here:

Get Tickets

Want to be an exhibitor? Click here:

Exhibitors Apply Here

April 13, 2010 from 6:00 pm – 9:00 pm, at Solmossen Court, Hamilton Hall, University of the Arts, 320 South Broad Street, Philadelphia.

Get excited about the future. Get excited about the entrepreneurial spirit of Philadelphia. Come to the Entrepreneur Expo. Come and see tomorrow, today.

Over 40 entrepreneurs will display their dreams, ideas and hard work in a trade-show like setting, with a select number giving a brief presentation of their work.

Continue Reading »

PHILLY STARTUP LEADERS GOES ALL-IN FOR GOOGLE GIGABIT

City government hasn’t taken the gamble we need. So we will.
We’re wagering every dollar we have — all $5,000 of it.

We have been saying for years now that Philadelphia has the best grassroots tech and creative community in the world. Now it’s time to make that obvious to everyone else.

Google has created a national competition among cities for the opportunity to have ultra-high bandwidth gigabit connectivity installed in portions of the winning city. This is part of a massive social and technological experiment designed to accelerate worldwide broadband adoption.

The Google Gigabit competition ends in just eight days, on March 26, 2010.

Philly’s grassroots communities have thrown our hat in the ring with Gigabit Philly, a website spearheaded by Alex Hillman and Branimir Vasilic and built by members of Philly Startup Leaders, Indy Hall and a band of dedicated individuals. Among those individuals are City Councilman Bill Green and City Chief Technology Officer Allan Frank.

But that’s not enough. Not nearly.

Google will never choose a city where the government and the broader community doesn’t do something dramatic. We need to show that all of us can work together and dedicate ourselves to making this experiment an over-the-top success for Google.

Because as vague as Google has been with their selection criteria, we know this much: they want the winning city to use gigabit in a way that becomes the envy of the world. They want an example city that inspires other cities and towns to drastically accelerate ultra-high bandwidth adoption.

What has the city of Philadelphia done so far? Essentially nothing. Let’s not be too surprised. Government in these cases can do little. The imagination and energy is going to have to come from the grassroots. It’s time for us to take the lead.

That’s why we’re taking matters into our own hands.

Philly Startup Leaders is investing every last dollar that’s not allocated to our upcoming Entrepreneur Expo event to seed a massive community-funded prize for the best ultra-high bandwidth idea submitted to Gigabit Philly.

That’s $5,000. We’re all-in.

This money is everything we have saved in our organization’s piggybank for the last two and a half years. Yes, we know that the city has been dealing with an awful budget crisis. Yes, we know that most of the major businesses, NGOs and non-profits have been suffering too. And yes, we know that many of our startups are running on empty.

But that doesn’t make us helpless. Remember, we are a do-it-yourself city.

Philly Startup Leaders is only the spark. Our money is intended to jolt the great people of Philadelphia into action. We are counting on our friends in the grassroots community and the Philadelphia establishment to pour their money on top of ours, dwarfing our $5,000 contribution. Together, will make the prize fund so broad-based and substantial that people will hear about it all over the world.

We are counting on more than money. We are counting on the power of the community to generate hundreds if not thousands of great ideas that demonstrate that this city has the ingenuity and determination to lead the world into a new gigabit era.

Eight days is a challenge for sure. We’ll need to work at gigabit speed ourselves to collect both the prize money and the ideas that can stun and surprise us all.

Just to show that Philly truly is the city of brotherly love, anyone in the world can win the prize. Even from a competitive city. Innovation is not about one city versus another. It’s about making progress together, and so when we judge the submissions, we will be impartial. We promise.

That said, all ideas must be submitted to Gigabit Philly. We won’t review submissions anywhere else.

Movements don’t go anywhere without the courage of the first followers. Thanks so much to Neil Kleinman for commiting $1,000 from the University of the Arts’ Corzo Center for the Creative Economy, and also to City Councilman Bill Green and City CTO Allan Frank for each committing $500 of their own money.

That’s $7,000 already. Now let’s add some zeros to that. We can do this together, one donation at a time.

To contribute to the prize, make a written commitment in the comments section below this post, including the dollar amount. Also be sure to email us your contact information to info@phillystartupleaders.com so we can reach you (please include your phone number).

Because time is short, we will formalize this commitment process in the coming days with the help of the broader Philadelphia community. We will also nail down the selection criteria.

Now for the other critical call to action: Make some noise. If you care about the future of Philadelphia, or about the future of broadband technology more broadly, share your enthusiasm with the world.

Use every medium at your disposal and all the creativity you can muster. On Twitter, use #GigabitPhilly.

We can do this Philadelphia. We will do this.