Pgh Startup Community Awards 2023 - Call for Nominations:
You are invited to be a part of the most anticipated event in the Pgh startup ecosystem, this year – the 2023 Pgh Startup Community Awards! This is your golden opportunity to shine the spotlight on outstanding individuals and organizations who have made significant contributions to our vibrant regional startup community.
Why You Should Nominate: We're putting the power in your hands to recognize and honor those who have driven innovation, fostered growth, and ignited the entrepreneurial spirit in Pittsburgh. By participating, you become an essential part of the first-ever community-led, annual celebration dedicated to showcasing the brilliance within our startup ecosystem.
How It Works:
Nomination Period: Submit your nominations from now until October 13th
Official Voting: The top nominations in each category will be put up for community-wide voting from October 14th to November 7th. Your voice counts!
Validated Votes/Results: All nomination and vote counts will be conducted and audited by Bodine Perry Certified Public Accountants & Advisors to maintain transparency and fairness.
Join us for the last Startup Drinks Pittsburgh of 2023 as we reconvene to celebrate Pgh's startup community over drinks at City Kitchen at Bakery Square on September 13th.
Headed to SaaStr Annual 2023? I'm hosting a b2b sales workshop for founders and sales leaders on Thursday, and have a couple investor events for any Pgh founders joing us next week.
Our new writer, Daniel Gigler is working on a story about the County Exec race, and the candidates' respective views about important topics impacting our region's innovation sector. We're hoping to include the RustBuilt community's input on key questions to be asked. Simply reply to this dicssuson post or email kit@rustbuilt.org with your top question(s).
- Opportunities to direct literal spend ($) to regional service providers/product/service companies
- Access to regional stakeholders to capture ideas/demand from large corporate players
- County/regional programs to better provide digital workforce development
- Funding to host/attract potential organizations to the region that become startup customers
- Programs to fund/pilot Alpha/Beta pilots with county/regional data/services
- Opportunities to have digitally native entrepreneurs help design/redesign/procure/solve for big pains in the region that are not easily supported by the capacity or capability of county employees
- Continuing education programs for county employees to embrace AI and other technology enablers as part of their day e.g., how does the analytics team use ChatGPT to automate analysis, how do we automate out processes that would take 10 humans to do it
- Areas where the county will make things like budgeting, impact, and results radically transparent and visualized ...
I have them all the time, and always wish that I had a group of people I could bring it up to, just to get their toughts. Before putting money into validation, trying to pitch VCs, or any of that, there's a point where you have a nagging "could this be something?" rattling around.
This isn't a thing I've seen anywhere else, so, in the startup spirit, I want to make it. To start, it would just be a regular meeting where someone gets the chance to offer an idea (no slides, no props, no pitches), and the assembled group can poke, prod, encourage, dissuade, and so on. Just an investment of time, but a return that could move someone from "I wonder..." to "I'll do it", or save someone a couple years of blood, sweat, and heartache.
Anyone interested in this kind of group? I'll call it the "Sounding Board" until I think of something better or get laughed out.
Reply here or reach out directly: ianpcook@gmail.com.
I think thats a good idea, I'd be happy to participate if was something virutal as I have very limited free time. I know my backrgound is very non-traditional and trying to help my wife w/ her startup I would have loved a group to throw ideas though its not tech related. Unrelated projects can have plenty of related skill needs. Feel free to reach out direct Ron@wesellpgh.Com
Thanks for expressing interest, Ron! I've not gotten too much other interest, but I'm going to beat the bushes some more. I'll make sure to include you in future messaging.
PittAgile is holding out 2023 Gathering on September 20th and 21st. The 20th will be a full day of discussions/interactions. The 21st is set aside for the Software Excellence Alliance business meeting and discussions. FedEx Ground in Robinson has graciously agreed to host us both days.
Day one will include 23 sessions with discussions around Product Ownership and Management, Leadership in Agile Transformations, Scaling Agile, and System Awareness in Engineering - Dev/Sec/Qual/Ops; CI/CD. At the end of the day is a networking/happy hour.
On day 2, our partners from the Software Excellence Alliance will host their Annual SEA Summit. The agenda includes a review of accomplishments and setting goals for next year as well as discussions of tools, networking and opportunities to contribute.
The link below will give you more details. The participants are all volunteer and the small admission covers the out of pocket costs including food and supplies
re:Bloom's small business web development program is closing on August 5, 2023!
re:Bloom is a non-profit tech consultancy whose mission is to make web development services accessible, affordable, and sustainable for women and minority-owned small businesses. They connect volunteer tech consultants with small business owners to update or create a new website for your business.
Join a program with other small businesses and receive a brand new or significantly updated website over the course of 10 weeks. To learn more, visit www.re-bloom.org/apply.
Hello! Hardly is opening up its Outplacement Services and we are looking to talk with businesses that may be considering layoffs or recently went through a period of layoffs. We are in the process of research as well as getting outplacement services customers. If you can spare some time, please message me. Or if you know anyone that this may be relevant to, please pass this along!
Hey ya'll, Happy Monday! Just wanted to drop a line here to intro myself.
I'm Ajmail Matin, Founder & CEO of Psyche.
What We Do: Psyche is reimagining mental healthcare by harnessing the power of data from wearables. We provide a platform for tracking and improving mental health, creating an objective, data-driven picture of an individual’s mental wellbeing and with a focus on nutritional psychiatry.
How We Do It: By leveraging AI and data from various wearables, we score users' mental health, creating a "Psyche Score". Our proprietary algorithms analyze patterns in sleep, activity, heart rate and other key health indicators, identifying potential triggers and patterns that can affect mental health. We then provide actionable insights, personalized coping strategies, and recommendations to help users proactively manage their mental wellbeing.
Why We Do It: With a rising tide of mental health issues and dependency on antidepressants, we believe there's a need for a proactive, data-driven approach. We're passionate about empowering individuals with insights into their own mental health and giving them the tools they need to feel better. Just as Weight Watchers revolutionized weight management, we envision Psyche revolutionizing mental health management.
Hey everyone! Does anyone have tips on getting users to sign up quickly after they already said yes to you on the phone?
I talk with Realtors in the area and pitch the service. Most are very excited to try it out. They then say that they will get to soon, but sometimes don't get around to it for awhile. Any advice on how to nudge users without sounding pushy or desperate?
It's a challenge we face all the time with our business (on both the creator and brand side). If you do everything for them in the sign up process, they don't learn the process and use the service. If you make them do everything, it's often too high a hurdle to get started.
When you do your sales calls or meetings, can you propose a strategy where you help them get started with the signup process but give them 1-2 simple actions as follow up? While you might not get sheer numbers of sign ups, you'll likely get higher quality signups.
Before my wife shifted into her current wholesale food business she was a Realtor for 6 years and I helped when I had time from my FT work so also licensed (we both still are just selectively practicing).
Lead offers were/are so overwhelming and often provided poor leads (I assume that is what you offer as your site has no details for realtors). Its a hard balance, Lead quality vs costs vs time savings. If you want an immediate converstion after your phone call that you have no real control, there needs to be a pretty strong value to the agent. Really depends on specifics. Are you only selling to individual agents? Happy to answer questions from an agent side.