VIRTUAL — UMKC Presents Starting Your Start-Up: What You Can Do with an Idea

Often when we have ideas for a business, it is difficult to know where to start - how to learn quickly whether or not we have a feasible idea, and where the low hanging fruit is to begin testing the market and gaining some early traction. In this session, Alex Matlack and Bryan Boots from the UMKC Regnier Institute for Entrepreneurship & Innovation will take you through a workshop with strategies to support you through the early stages of growing your new business.
 
In this session you will learn...

• What to do when you have an idea.
• Why you should be the one to start this.
• How to start small and grow from there.

Alex Matlack is the Director of E-Scholars and an Instructor in Entrepreneurship and Organizational Behavior at the UMKC Bloch School of Management. Formerly, she ran the Techstars Kansas City accelerator and worked for the Techstars ecosystem development team. Prior to that, she worked in research & policy at the Kauffman Foundation. Her expertise is in how startups can create organizations with functional cultures, prepare startup operations for scale, and leverage startup ecosystems. Alex has a masters degree from New York University in Organizational Behavior, Systems, and Analytics and a bachelors degree in International Studies from the University of Nebraska at Omaha. 

Bryan Boots is Managing Director for Venture Creation with the Regnier Institute and Assistant Teaching Professor with the Bloch School of Management. In his responsibilities with the Regnier Institute, Bryan leads the RIEI's portfolio of programs aimed at helping rising entrepreneurs start new business ventures of all types. This portfolio includes the E-Scholars program, UMKC's chapter of Entrepreneur Quest, pitch competitions, incubator space, mentorship opportunities, and more. In his responsibilities with the Bloch School, Bryan teaches undergraduate and graduate entrepreneurship courses in areas including product development, technology entrepreneurship & management, and others. Bryan studied engineering undergraduate at Kansas State University, engineering graduate level at Kansas State University and University of Arkansas, and earned his MBA from UMKC's Bloch School. He is currently pursuing his PhD in networks and network science. In addition to his role with UMKC, Bryan has worked for a number of technology and engineering companies ranging from startups to global corporations, and has been a founder or co-founder in several businesses.