Building Confidence in your Entrepreneurial Voyage!

 In collaboration with USF CONNECT and Tampa Bay WaVe, TiE Tampa Bay is pleased to host an innovative workshop targeted at early-stage entrepreneurs on July 17^th at USF Connect from 2PM followed by a social hour.

 The workshop is being presented by Andrew Ackerman, Managing Director at DreamIt Ventures, New York. Andrew is an experienced consultant turned serial entrepreneur, startup mentor and angel investor and currently manages the UrbanTech accelerator program at DreamIT.

 The hands-on workshop will focus on three fundamental elements:

·        Developing an effective “elevator pitch” – the ability to articulate the market need, business value and targeted customer segment of the product and/or solution developed by the entrepreneur

·        One-page capstone summary – A concise document enumerating the executive summary, business description, employee section, operations information, marketing strategy and financial statements. But beyond these components, the business plan must also consist of well-researched information that can clearly communicate your business mission and the value to the investor.

·        A successful investor presentation – The most crucial elements in a pitch deck that grabs the attention of the investors and drives an engaging investment discussion

 Participants should bring an electronic version of their current documents for constructive feedback.

Program Lead

Andrew Ackerman

Managing Director, Dreamit

 Andrew is recovering consultant turned serial entrepreneur, startup mentor and angel investor. He is the Managing Director at Dreamit, currently in charge of the UrbanTech accelerator program. Andrew is also a contributing writer to Fortune, AlleyWatch, The 74 Million, et. al.

 Andrew began his career at Booz & Co consulting on strategy and operations for Fortune 100 clients. After a brief stint at Kaplan helping transition their traditional classroom test prep services into online products, he then joined Bunk1.com as COO/Head of Product where he spent eight years building it from scratch to the leading provider of web services to the summer camp industry. After being bought out of Bunk1 in 2008, Andrew managed a family office where he was responsible for both incubating new ventures and for managing over $50M of alternative assets including hedge, private equity, and venture capital funds as well as a number of direct investments in private companies. Andrew was also the founding CEO of Layercake.com and has a keen appreciation for how hard it is to build a successful startup, even under the best of circumstances.

 Andrew received his MBA in Operations & Marketing from Chicago Booth (Beta Gamma Sigma) and a BA in Economics & Political Science from Johns Hopkins University (Phi Beta Kappa). He speaks Hebrew fluently as well as some Spanish, French & Japanese and is working on JavaScript. He currently lives on the Upper West Side with his wife and 3 daughters.

Links:

LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/and...

Twitter @AndrewAckerman

Blog: http://www.AsAngelsSeeIt.com