“When I announced this event in December I anticipated 60 of you would be interested in attending, but that quickly sold out,” said TechSTL Executive Director Emily Breedlove to the assembled crowd easily topping 200.
The TechSTL launch party at T-Rex in downtown St. Louis introduced the new entrepreneur support organization to the region. TechSTL supports tech innovation in the 7 Missouri counties around St. Louis City, as well as the 8 Illinois counties on the other side of the river.
The event itself was upbeat and well attended, but Entrepreneur Quarterly publisher Jonathan Allen, who was not in attendance, wrote a critical op-ed the next morning.
“I couldn’t bear to see the pattern repeated,” he told the 4thEst8. “There can be good communication in the system but somehow there’s this moment where all of the ‘spirit’ of St. Louis up and leaves… on the execution… and we’re left with replicas and reproductions of city level initiatives that entrepreneurs have already sweated and produced themselves, and they’re left out… yet they’re the inspiration for the initiatives.”
Caught Schmoozing are:
- Matthew Barnard, DroneNX; Henry Wolff, DroneNX; Dequan Brown, DroneNX
- Meghan Cronin, Balto; Olesia Mukha, Balto
- Oday Alyatim, plug; Chris Cardinal, Amptify
- Steve Davis, SLDC; Kevin Wilson, SBEC
- Ed Schneider, StartLouis; Simon Huang, Office of the Mayer (STL)
- Loon Lo, WellHealth, Bob Cormier, WellHealth
- Tishara Earl, Techrein; Isaac Block, Square; Eli Front, EDURain
- Paul Petruska, Greensfelder; Michael Margraf, Total Orbit
- Edward Thornton, BlackTechSTL; Brian Barlay, Barlay Consulting; Adjo Honsou, Tribe228
- Jess Bellomo, Arch Grants; Rebecca Garcia, Arch Grants; Sara Mesiano, Arch Grants
- ML Helbig, American Express; lost card (sorry)