The official week.

Part of Twin Cities Startup Week 2026, September 14–18.

Bringing back a long-standing TCSW staple, Mentor Morning is an casual gathering space for founders and experienced business leaders to connect one-on-one, talk through real challenges, and build relationships that can continue beyond the week.

Who should come: If you're a founder looking for a mentor, someone who could use experienced perspective on what you're working through, or an experienced founder or business professional who's open to mentoring and sharing what you've learned, this morning is for you.

Come with questions, challenges, or simply an openness to meeting someone new. The goal is to make it easier for people who need guidance and people who have guidance to give to find each other.

Host Partners:

• Dave Neville, President of MN Innovates
• John Moroney, President of MESA Group

Part of Twin Cities Startup Week 2026, September 14–18.

In a world where AI has made everything faster and easier, it’s easy to think a computer can also write a serviceable brand strategy. But while AI does a great job of analyzing data and driving efficiencies, building a successful brand and creating compelling ways to connect with people is (so far) best done by smart people, not smart machines. In this session, long-time agency veterans, Kara Buckner (former President and Chief Strategy Officer at Fallon) and Michael Hart (Founder and former Chief Creative Officer at MONO) share five lessons they’ve learned from working with brands like Apple and Nordstrom that they now apply to startups in their new company, The Reversal Collective.

Speakers:

• Kara Buckner, Founder & Chief Executive Officer of The Reversal Collective
• Michael Hart, Founder & Chief Creative Officer of The Reversal Collective

Part of Twin Cities Startup Week 2026, September 14–18.

Session details coming soon.

On stage, recorded live for the Burn Rate + Bull$hit podcast:

• Josh Robinson, Managing Partner @ Exit 156 Capital & Co-Host @ Burn Rate + Bull$hit
• Mike Nathan, CEO @ Impervo Ventures & Co-Host @ Burn Rate + Bull$hit
• Brian Snyder, Chief Strategy Officer @ A.R.T. Digital Holdings

Part of Twin Cities Startup Week 2026, September 14–18.

Risk shows up in a startup in more places than cybersecurity alone. In this rapid-fire Ignite series, three speakers will each have five minutes to share one lesson on identifying and managing risks before they become expensive problems, followed by two minutes of audience Q&A. The talks will look at risk from three different angles: operational and compliance systems, privacy and cybersecurity, and the human decisions that affect how a company executes and grows.

Speakers:

• Joe Slaughter — Founder, DefineTheBox
• Brandi Bennett — Managing Partner, Bennett Tech Law
• Rachel Edwards — Founder & CEO, Insperai

Part of Twin Cities Startup Week 2026, September 14–18.

Building a company rarely goes exactly as planned. Sometimes the market isn't responding, sometimes the business is growing in a direction you didn't expect, and sometimes what you built simply isn't the business you want to keep building.

This panel brings together founders and operators who have had to make decisions in that ambiguity: whether to keep pushing, change direction, rethink the business, or walk away altogether. They'll talk about recognizing the signals that something needs to change, separating a difficult season from a fundamental problem, and making decisions when you don't have enough information to know for certain that you're making the right one.

Attendees should leave with a better framework for looking at their own business when something isn't working and deciding whether the answer is persistence, adaptation, a pivot, or letting something go.

Speakers:

• Jordyn DiOrio, Founder @ MEND Jewelry - Knowing when growth isn't the goal: Jordyn raised venture capital for MEND Jewelry, expanded into Nordstrom and Anthropologie and opened a Mall of America store, then ultimately made the decision to close the company after six years. She brings the perspective of questioning whether continuing to scale is actually the right outcome and walking away without treating that decision as failure.
• Alex Bangs, Founder / Fractional CIO / Advisor - Learning and adapting through the startup rollercoaster: After more than 25 years founding and leading startups, Alex brings the long-term perspective of repeatedly getting things wrong, learning, and adjusting along the way. His experience spans funding, burn rates, teams, culture, leadership, and the personal realities of navigating companies through uncertainty.
• Jared Johnson, Product & Design Leader - Making decisions when the answer isn't clear: Jared brings the product and design perspective of navigating ambiguity, including how to create temporary clarity, prioritize with limited information and resources, and use lightweight frameworks to keep moving when expectations and circumstances are changing.

Part of Twin Cities Startup Week 2026, September 14–18.

Niron Magnetics was born in Minnesota with a breakthrough in materials science: a new class of permanent magnets made using iron and nitrogen, without relying on rare earth materials. The material was only the beginning. Today, Niron is turning that innovation into a manufacturing capability built for scale.

This session explores Niron’s evolution from early-stage technology development to commercial manufacturing, including how the company has grown its technology, team, and operations while maintaining a focus on domestic production and supply chains.

At the center of this next chapter is Niron’s commercial manufacturing plant in Sartell, Minnesota. As the plant moves toward production, Niron is building the capabilities needed to take Iron Nitride magnets from development to high-volume manufacturing in the United States.

It’s a look at what it takes to scale deep technology, build a strong company culture, and turn a new material into a commercially viable product and a new domestic manufacturing capability.

Speaker:

John Larson, PhD, VP, Plant Readiness and Startup @ Niron Magnetics

John Larson is an executive leader with 26 years of experience in the development of advanced semiconductor and magnetic materials. He has held engineering, operational, and executive leadership roles spanning R&D, pilot, and production scales in these industries. As Niron Magnetics’ second employee, John has played a critical role in building the team, culture, technology, and operations that have helped shape the company’s growth over the past nine years.

While at Niron, John has led the planning, build-out, startup and operations of the industrial lab that produced the world’s first scalable high performance Iron Nitride magnets. He then recruited and led the commercial pilot engineering and operations teams that currently provide customer samples of Iron Nitride magnets. He is now focused on the design, construction, and operations readiness for Niron’s first full-scale production plant in Sartell, Minnesota.  John passionately embraces Niron’s mission to combine great people, culture, technology and processes that will sustainably produce globally impactful Iron Nitride magnets.

Prior to Niron, John spent 17 years in the semiconductor industry, working across R&D, manufacturing and operations disciplines. This work spans three well-known manufacturers of silicon-based memory chips and gallium nitride power electronic products – Cypress Semiconductor, International Rectifier and Infineon Technologies.  John’s career began with 7 years at startup Spinnaker Semiconductor, where he oversaw R&D, joint-development projects and its Intellectual Property program.  John has a PhD in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Minnesota, with a specialization in synthetic diamond processes.

Part of Twin Cities Startup Week 2026, September 14–18.

Open to anyone attending Startup Week. You'll be paired up with other attendees for a series of quick, timed conversations — no awkward mingling, no standing around trying to figure out who to talk to. Just structured, low-pressure intros that rotate every few minutes.

It's especially great if you're an introvert, new to the startup scene, or just want an easy way to meet people without the small-talk grind of a typical networking event. Come with a few business cards (or your LinkedIn QR code) and an open mind — you never know who you'll end up across the table from!

Hosted by:

• Jenna Redfield

Part of Twin Cities Startup Week 2026, September 14–18.

Women are not just advocating for better healthcare, they are building it. Across research, care delivery, technology, and investment, women are creating new models designed around needs the traditional system has too often overlooked.

This conversation will explore what it takes to turn insight into innovation, innovation into scalable solutions, and better solutions into better outcomes. We are going bigger than the typical niche of Women's Health to create a more inclusive and accessible future of health for all.

Speakers: To be announced!

Part of Twin Cities Startup Week 2026, September 14–18.

What happens when decades of startup mentoring experience meet AI?

MESA mentors Jeff Eckerle and Tim Bates lead a hands-on workshop where you'll apply an AI mentoring framework to your own business, built by the MESA Mentor Group. Rather than relying on generic advice, you'll work through a model informed by the patterns our experienced mentors use to identify what a business should focus on next.

Pre-work: To get the most out of this workshop, come prepared with your pitch deck or other materials describing your business. You'll use them to apply the mentoring framework during the session.

Facilitated by mentors @ MESA Group:

• Tim Bates
• Jeff Eckerle
• John Moroney

Part of Twin Cities Startup Week 2026, September 14–18.

You don't have to be a software engineer to start building with AI. In this fireside chat, Kathleen will share how she took an idea rooted in a problem she understood deeply and began turning it into a real product, despite not having a traditional coding background.

Her approach to "Mom Coding" is less about letting AI build whatever you ask for and more about knowing what expertise you already bring to the process. She'll talk about using domain knowledge, judgment, intuition, and curiosity to guide AI, learning enough to question what it produces, and recognizing when a product has reached the point where deeper technical expertise needs to come in. Michael Arulfo will bring the technical perspective to the conversation, helping explore where AI can make building more accessible and where good technical judgment still matters.

The conversation is especially for people sitting on an idea or deep expertise in a problem who have assumed they aren't technical enough to build something themselves.

Speakers:

• Kathleen Hustad, Founder & CEO, EVRKind
• Michael Arulfo, Chief AI Officer & Field CTO

Part of Twin Cities Startup Week 2026, September 14–18.

Hear directly from founders who got some of their earliest exposure to entrepreneurship through student programs, in this case the MN Cup Student Division, then went on to build growing Minnesota companies.

Founding teams from Minneapolis Cider Company, Refr Sports, and Charm Social Tonic will take the stage in succession to share where their companies are today and how early opportunities like MN Cup helped them gain exposure, build momentum, and move from student entrepreneurship into the broader business community.This session is especially for students and early-stage founders who want to see what that path can actually look like, told by people who were sitting where they are not that long ago.

All attendees will receive a sweet treat from Johnny Pops, who was not able to join this talk but wants to send their appreciation for the community!

Co-Founding Speaker Teams:

• Minneapolis Cider Company: David O'Neill & Jason Dayton
• Refr Sports: Huck Sorock & Wyatt Gustafson
• Charm Social Tonic: Della Daml & Josephine "Josie" Miller
• Moderator: Lauren Mehler Pradhan

Part of Twin Cities Startup Week 2026, September 14–18.

Building with AI in healthcare means working within an industry where speed and experimentation have to coexist with regulation, risk, clinical accuracy, and real-world usability. In this rapid-fire Ignite series, four speakers will each have five minutes to share one lesson from their work across healthcare AI and MedTech, followed by two minutes of audience Q&A. The talks will explore applying AI to complex clinical information, designing AI-enabled healthcare products, navigating FDA requirements, and identifying product and regulatory risks early enough to make better decisions.

Speakers:

• Emmanuel Fle Chea — Founder & CEO, Lexify Health
• Heatherlee Nguyen — Principal Product Designer, Aroris Health
• Steve Gompertz — MedTech Quality & Regulatory Consultant
• Jamie Ryan — MedTech Innovation Advisor

Part of Twin Cities Startup Week 2026, September 14–18.

The conversation doesn’t have to end when the session does. Speaker Office Hours create dedicated space for 1:1 support between speakers and attendees in a more personal, informal setting. Come ask the question you didn’t get to during Q&A, dig deeper into something you heard on stage, get individual perspective on a challenge you’re working through, or simply meet someone whose experience sparked your curiosity.

No formal presentation, no additional prep. Just a dedicated space for one-on-one conversations, useful questions, and connections that can continue well beyond the week.

Part of Twin Cities Startup Week 2026, September 14–18.

Growth looks different depending on what you're building. A strategy that works for a consumer product may fall flat in manufacturing, healthcare, or MedTech, especially when startups are navigating long sales cycles, complex buyers, regulated industries, and limited resources.

This panel brings together leaders across industries to explore how startups can build marketing strategies that actually support growth. They'll dig into finding the right customers, testing new approaches, using AI and emerging tools effectively, and knowing when it's time to invest more seriously in marketing.

Moderator:

• 1752 VC: Bringing the investor perspective on how marketing, customer traction, and a company's ability to reach its market factor into sustainable growth.

Speakers & Perspectives:

CPG:

• Building awareness, earning consumer attention, and turning early customers into repeat demand.
• Manufacturing: Marketing complex products and capabilities to highly specific B2B buyers.
• Healthcare / Medical Device: Building trust and reaching customers in industries with longer sales cycles, multiple stakeholders, and regulatory considerations.

Part of Twin Cities Startup Week 2026, September 14–18.

Social media has changed how companies find customers, but the old playbook of posting from a brand account and hoping people pay attention isn't working particularly well anymore. People follow people, algorithms determine what gets seen, and content that feels personal and unpolished can travel much further than traditional company marketing.

This panel brings together three different perspectives on how businesses can build reach through social media today. They'll talk about what makes people stop and pay attention, the role founders and employees can play in building an audience, how to create content people actually trust, and most importantly, how to turn that attention into something useful for the business.

Attendees should leave with a better understanding of how social media distribution is changing and practical ideas for building an audience that can lead to customers, users, and advocates.

Speakers & Perspectives:

• Stephen Regenold, Founder @ Regenold Co. — How media and distribution are changing: Stephen will bring the broader view of what's happening to media, including the shift from publications and company accounts toward individual creators, algorithms, direct audiences, video, and community-driven trust. His perspective helps explain why the old ways of earning attention are changing and what companies need to understand about the new ones.
• Vikas Sabbi, Technical Co-Founder @ Dino Initiative — Turning organic attention into product users: Vikas will use Dino as a case study for what organic social growth can actually produce. He has built an audience of roughly 380,000 across Instagram and TikTok, including one TikTok that drove approximately 1,300 people to the product in a week, giving him a concrete way to talk about what content gets attention and how that attention converts into users.
• Jennifer Shawgo, Founder @ PostAutoPilot — Turning employees into distribution: Jennifer will bring the company perspective of expanding social reach through the people already inside the business. She'll talk about helping employees share company content through their own networks, maintaining an authentic personal voice, and using many individual audiences rather than relying entirely on one corporate account.
• Charlie Light, Social Media Strategist & Former Head of Content @ Enduring Ventures — Using social media as a customer acquisition channel: Charlie has built social strategies for some of the most visible entrepreneurs on X and currently runs social media for 5+ venture-backed startups. He'll bring the operator perspective on how founders can use social media as more than a brand-building exercise, including what to post, how to build a founder-led presence people actually want to follow, and how to connect attention and audience growth back to customer acquisition and business growth.

Part of Twin Cities Startup Week 2026, September 14–18.

Meet the newest cohort of the Techstars Future of Food Powered by Ecolab accelerator and get an early look at what founders are building across the future of food. The accelerator invests in pre-seed and seed-stage companies working across the food value chain, including supply chain, labor, water technology, retail, restaurant technology, and more.

Throughout this fast-moving session, eight founders from the current cohort will each take the stage for 3–5 minutes to introduce what they're building, the problem they're tackling, and what makes their approach different, followed by a brief audience Q&A.

This is about sharing passion, not pitches.

Whether you're already building in these industries, considering where your own idea could take you, or curious about investing in the technologies shaping what comes next, come meet the founders, discover emerging ideas, and see some of the ingenuity being built right here in the Twin Cities.

Speakers:

• To be revealed onsite :)

Part of Twin Cities Startup Week 2026, September 14–18.

For one evening, founders and mayors step away from the pitch deck and onto the podium to share their origin stories.

5 to 7 speakers from across the ecosystem will gather to share their stories, opportunities, and obstacles that sparked their most inspired initiatives. Every conversation in the room is designed to inspire how we can build stronger public-private partnerships and deeper, more resilient startup communities.

Come ready to engage, learn, and be inspired. Walking distance from University of St. Thomas, where the rest of the earlier programming will be.

Space is limited, so please register ahead of time here!

Speakers:

• Kevin Hughes - Founder of Walker/Miles - Sports Innovator
• Kathleen Hustad - Founder of EVRKind (soon to be LightWell Care)-- Community Care Innovator
• Abdi Mohammed -- Founder of Wathaag -- Influencer Innovator
• Molubah Seley - Founder and CEO of Origin House - Ecosystem Innovator
• Anthony Dann -- Founder and CEO of Biometrica Health - HealthTech Innovator
• Mike Nathan - CEO of Impero Ventures & Co-Host of Burn Rate & Bull$hit
• Brian Snyder - Chief Strategy & Innovation Officer @ A.R.T. Digital Holdings Corp

Part of Twin Cities Startup Week 2026, September 14–18.

There isn't one right way to fund a startup. This series of rapid-fire talks will look at different pieces of the capital stack and the decisions founders make about how to fund their companies as they grow. Speakers will bring perspectives from raising equity and non-dilutive funding, preparing companies to raise capital, investing from the VC side, and understanding how equity functions when ownership is shared with employees.

Speakers & Perspectives:

• Eugene Alvey, Founder & CEO @ Swinergy - Combining equity + non-dilutive capital: Having raised more than $4M in equity and $650K in non-dilutive funding while building a hard-tech company, Eugene can share how different sources of capital fit together and why the capital strategy for a company with significant product-development costs may look very different from a software startup.
• Ognjen Jovicic, Startup Funding Advisor - Becoming ready for capital: With 20 years in Big Four consulting and current work preparing startups for funding, Ognjen can focus on what needs to happen before founders start chasing capital: becoming fundable, reducing time to capital, and determining what kind of funding actually fits the company.
• Aaditya Sethi, General Partner / Venture Scout @ Atland Ventures / Underdog Labs - Understanding the equity investor: As a General Partner at Atland Ventures and Venture Scout at Underdog Labs, Aaditya can bring the investor side of the capital stack: what investors are looking for, how they evaluate opportunities, and his perspective on a VC landscape where investors themselves are getting younger.
• Trevor Ausen, Financial Advisor - Understanding the equity you're giving away: Trevor can take the capital-stack conversation beyond fundraising and into employee ownership. His perspective can help founders understand what equity awards actually mean to employees and what founders should consider when offering ownership as part of compensation.

Part of Twin Cities Startup Week 2026, September 14–18.

Minnesota has one of the strongest healthcare and MedTech ecosystems in the country, and for one night during Twin Cities Startup Week, we're bringing as much of it together as we can.

The Mega Med Social is a gathering for the people building, funding, supporting, and advancing what's next in healthcare. Founders, clinicians, researchers, investors, corporate innovators, medical device professionals, healthcare leaders, and the healthcare-curious are all invited to come meet one another, discover what people are working on, and make connections across parts of the ecosystem that don't always end up in the same room.

We're partnering with HealthcareMN, Minnesota's home for healthcare innovation and startups, to bring the community together. HealthcareMN has spent more than a decade creating connections between entrepreneurs, healthcare providers, investors, designers, corporate leaders, and others working to improve healthcare, making them a natural partner for a night built around strengthening those relationships.

And we're hosting it at University Enterprise Labs (UEL), a place where healthcare innovation is quite literally being built. UEL supports early-stage life science and technology companies with specialized lab and office space, shared resources, and an ecosystem designed to help technical ideas move toward commercialization. Instead of talking about Minnesota's healthcare startup ecosystem from the outside, you'll be spending the evening inside one of the places helping create it.

ENJOY A FREE DRINK! THANKS TO OUR SPONSORS:

• Dayna Taylor, CEO of Ezer21: Ezer21 works alongside MedTech and healthcare founders on the financial side of building and scaling a company. Through fractional CFO and strategic financial support, they help founders navigate capital strategy, forecasting, business models, investor expectations, commercialization, and the financial decisions that determine whether an innovation can successfully make the journey from an idea to patients.
• Megan Doberstein, Commerical Marketing Leader @ Ignite MedTech: Ignite MedTech works specifically with MedTech and health-tech startups to figure out one of the hardest parts of innovation: how to bring something new to market. Their healthcare-focused marketing expertise helps growing companies clarify their positioning, reach the right audiences, and build the commercial traction necessary to turn promising technology into a sustainable business.

Headshots at the social: Egobee runs a headshot station 5 to 8 PM. $50, normally a $170 value, two retouched headshots and your raw files, edited on site. Reserve your spot: https://www.tcstartupweek.com/headshots

Part of Twin Cities Startup Week 2026, September 14-18.

Registration for this event is handled by the host on the Atlassian Community Events page: https://ace.atlassian.com/events/details/atlassian-minneapolis-twin-cities-presents-atlassian-for-startups-founders-and-solopreneurs-apps-to-scale-your-business-for-growth-for-free/

Part of Twin Cities Startup Week 2026, September 14–18.

Calling all ecosystem builders! If you organize, operate, or support a program, event, space, community, or resource that powers Minnesota’s startup and technology ecosystem, this gathering is for you.

Join us for a casual meetup to learn about each other’s work, share what we’re seeing, and find ways to better support each other and the startups we serve.

Please note: This meetup is for people doing ecosystem-building work. Founders looking for resources and connections can find these folks hosting, mentoring, speaking, and engaging throughout TCSW!

About the Meetup:

The MN Innovation Ecosystem Builders Meetup is a monthly, community-powered gathering for those building and supporting Minnesota’s startup and technology ecosystem.

Hosted By: Meg Steur, Executive Director of Minnestar

Part of Twin Cities Startup Week 2026, September 14–18.

ILT Startup Connect brings Starters, Connectors, and Collaborators together to learn, support, and inspire one another through the real stories and hard-earned lessons of people building what’s next.

For this special Twin Cities Startup Week edition, we’re bringing together two powerhouse founders: one homegrown Minnesota changemaker and one bold innovator from beyond our borders. Together, they’ll share the honest stories behind their work, the lessons they’ve learned, and the challenges they’re navigating along the way.

This meetup is for entrepreneurs, innovators, creatives, investors, and community members who want to connect with founders from Minnesota and beyond, exchange ideas, and strengthen the relationships that help startup communities thrive.

This isn’t just another panel. It’s a conversation—and you’re part of it.

After hearing two unfiltered “Starter Stories,” our hosts will guide a thoughtful conversation with the founders before opening the floor to audience questions. Bring your toughest questions, biggest challenges, and wildest ideas.

You’ll also have time to meet fellow founders, investors, connectors, and community leaders who are there to share, support, and collaborate.

Come for the stories. Stay for the conversation. Make a connection. Leave with fresh perspective, new relationships, and a little more momentum for whatever you’re building next. #ilikethat

SPECIAL GUESTS:

• Nichole Lowe, Founder & CEO of ZOEE
• Andre Creighton, Consulting CFO at CLA & Former Co-Founder, TURN SIGNL

CO-HOSTED BY:

• Nick Tietz, Founder & CEO of ILT Academy
• Ashley Hawkes, Founder, SOAR Leadership Groups

Part of Twin Cities Startup Week 2026, September 14–18.

You're scrappy. You're moving fast. You and your cofounders wear multiple hats. That's not the problem. The problem is when building at AI speed creates quiet, expensive ways for someone to take over what you're building - and a single security failure can stop the company. Nathaniel and Clea will draw on deep experience in cybersecurity and digital entrepreneurship to show you how to build and maintain continuity and security in the AI age. In a world where Stripe tokens are stolen in 40 seconds, software supply chains are compromised weekly, and AI-built systems are too complex to fully understand, make sure your company can survive its own speed.

Speakers:

• Nathaniel Engelsen, Senior Vice President of Technology of Augeo Marketing
• Clea Ostendorf, Co-Founder & CEO of Wolfpack Security

Part of Twin Cities Startup Week 2026, September 14–18.

Twin Cities Podcast Studio started with three founders, an empty room, a lease, and no experience running a podcast studio. They signed the lease in September, brought in their first paying client by November, and were profitable within six months.

In this talk, Karl Ness will use Twin Cities Podcast Studio as a case study for how to take a service-business idea from “maybe this could work” to something people will actually pay for. He'll break down how they identified an opportunity in the market, figured out what they actually needed to spend money on, scraped together the resources to get started, found their first customers, and adjusted through the slow months as they worked toward profitability.

The goal isn't just to tell the story of how they built a podcast studio. Attendees should leave with lessons they can apply to their own business idea, including how to test whether there's a real market, decide what you need to launch versus what can wait, find your first paying customers, and use early revenue and customer feedback to figure out what to do next.

Speakers:

• Karl Ness, Founder @ Twin Cities Podcast Studio
• Daniel Espeseth, Co-Founder @ Twin Cities Podcast Studio

Part of Twin Cities Startup Week 2026, September 14–18.

Crowdfunding can do more than raise money. For the right product, it can be a way to validate demand, take preorders before producing at scale, build an early customer base, and turn those customers into people who actively help spread the word.

In this session, Valerie Blomberg will break down what goes into a successful crowdfunding campaign across platforms like Kickstarter, Indiegogo, and BackerKit, including the biggest dos and don'ts she's learned from a decade of running campaigns that have raised as much as $5.3 million.

Attendees will leave with a clearer understanding of whether crowdfunding makes sense as a go-to-market strategy for their own business, what needs to be in place before launching a campaign, and how the community-building principles behind crowdfunding can be applied even if you never launch one.

Speakers:

• Valerie Blomberg, Founder @ New Audience

Part of Twin Cities Startup Week 2026, September 14–18.

Great ideas shouldn’t stay in the room when a talk ends. The Work Zone is where you put them to work. Bring the thing you’re working on right now, sit down at the table that matches it, and make progress alongside other founders and an expert who does this for a living. When you’re ready, move to the next table. Most founders visit two or three.

Twin Cities Startup Week is partnering with Founders Founding, which runs hands-on Work Zones where founders bring real work and leave with real next steps. Select TCSW speakers facilitate tables connected to their talks, so you can go deeper with the expert who introduced the idea.

Expert Tables:

• Accounting, Bookkeeping & Taxes
• AI & Automation
• Branding, Marketing & Messaging
• Business Strategy
• Business Systems & Tools
• Financing & Funding
• Guidance for Brand New Founders
• HR & Compensation
• Insurance
• IT Support
• Legal
• Offer Development
• Prospecting & Sales
• Wealth Management / Financial Planning
• Website Development

Drop in any time between 10 AM and 12 PM. No pitch, no slides. Just your work.

Part of Twin Cities Startup Week 2026, September 14–18.

Every founder thinks their startup is interesting. But getting journalists and the media to actually care is another matter.

The panel will explore what founders really need to know about PR, media and communications: When should a startup start thinking seriously about PR? What actually makes a company newsworthy? What do journalists care about — and what do they ignore? What communications mistakes do founders repeatedly make? How should the story change as a company moves from startup to scale-up? And how do you build visibility and credibility without wasting money or simply creating noise? And when can PR really help a company punch above its weight?

Speakers:

• Arick Wierson — Moderator, Newsweek: Newsweek columnist, six-time Emmy Award-winning television producer and former senior communications adviser to New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Arick has spent much of his career at the intersection of media, corporate communications, public affairs and storytelling, including advising startups and growth-stage companies.
• Erin Foran — Head of PR, Sezzle: Head of Public Relations at Sezzle, one of Minnesota’s most prominent startup success stories of the past decade. The Minneapolis-founded fintech grew from startup to a multibillion-dollar public company, giving Erin a great perspective on how communications evolves as a company scales.
• Mike Nathan — IMPERO Ventures: Serial entrepreneur, startup operator, investor and founding partner of Exit 156 Capital. Mike is also behind Burn Rate + Bull$hit, the startup and entrepreneurship media platform that has built an audience of more than one million subscribers. He brings the perspective of both a VC/operator and someone who has built a massive audience talking candidly about what it actually takes to start, fund and scale companies.
• Carl Levi — Greenberg Enterprises: Chief Revenue Officer of Greenberg Enterprises, a family-owned investment office focused on early-stage and scaling companies. Carl can bring the investor perspective on what portfolio companies get right — and wrong — when it comes to marketing, positioning, communications and building visibility.
• Pat Milan — Tunheim: Senior communications strategist with Tunheim, one of the Twin Cities’ leading public affairs and communications firms. Pat brings decades of experience advising companies and organizations on reputation, positioning, media and communications strategy.

Part of Twin Cities Startup Week 2026, September 14–18.

Deep tech companies face a different path from idea to market than most software startups. The technology may begin in a university, research lab, or highly technical field, but proving that it works is only one part of building a viable company around it.

This panel will look at the path from technical innovation to commercialization, including where founders can find technologies worth building around, how hardware moves from prototype to something that can actually be manufactured at scale, and what founders working in areas like cleantech can expect when bringing complex technologies into established industries. The conversation will also cover the partnerships, technical talent, testing, manufacturing, and commercialization infrastructure that become especially important when the thing you're building has to work in the physical world.

Speakers & Perspectives:

• Bardia Bijani, Managing Partner / Visiting Assistant Professor & Executive-in-Residence @ FuzeQube Group / CSB+SJU - Commercialization: Bardia will bring the technology-transfer and venture-building perspective, including how founders can find opportunities within universities, research institutions, federal labs, and existing IP rather than assuming they have to invent the underlying technology themselves.
• Gopalakrishna Ranjan Melpal, Senior Mechanical Engineer @ Starkey Hearing - Product engineering: Ranjan will focus on what happens between prototype and scalable product, including designing for manufacturing, cost, performance, reliability, testing, and working with contract manufacturers.
• David Koerner, Cleantech / Sustainable Energy Leader - Cleantech: David can bring the industry perspective of commercializing technology in sustainable energy and cleantech, giving the conversation a concrete example of a sector where technical feasibility, physical infrastructure, economics, and adoption all have to come together.
• Pat Dillon, SBIR/STTR & Non-Dilutive Funding Advisor – Funding and commercializing deep tech: Pat brings deep experience helping science- and technology-driven companies navigate the long road from technical innovation to commercialization, particularly through federal SBIR/STTR funding. He can speak to how deep-tech founders use non-dilutive capital to fund R&D, validate technology, reduce technical risk, and build toward a business that can ultimately reach the market.

Part of Twin Cities Startup Week 2026, September 14–18.

Hosted by Diamond Resilience x Blacks in Technology x Cryptic Institute.

Come for an exciting community-driven accountability space for tech enthusiasts and professionals to build projects, exchange skills, and expand their networks. Bring your laptop and active projects to work alongside fellow builders, share live demos for real-time feedback, and troubleshoot together. Whether you are looking to code, collaborate, or simply enjoy the tech-forward atmosphere, you are welcome to attend all or part of the session.

Facilitators:

• Marlaina Love: Founder of The Diamond Resilience & Chapter President of Blacks In Technology - Twin Cities
• Devin Boeing: Founder & CEO of Cryptic Institute

Part of Twin Cities Startup Week 2026, September 14–18.

Building a business affects much more than your work. It can change your relationships, your routines, how you spend your time, and even how you define success for yourself.

This panel brings together women founders for a candid conversation about the parts of entrepreneurship that happen outside the pitch deck and business plan. They'll talk about wearing multiple hats, navigating relationships with friends and family, managing burnout, dealing with outside expectations, and figuring out how to keep building without losing themselves in the process.

Attendees should leave with an honest look at the realities of entrepreneurship and perspectives from women who have had to decide what success looks like on their own terms.

Speakers & Perspectives:

• Demi George, WeMN Board of Directors, Social Media Director | Founder of HeartGlass
• Cece Campbell, President of WeMN | Realtor, Sold By Cece
• Alex Apsey, WeMN Board of Directors, Secretary | Operations Consultant
• Rachel Moscatelli, WeMN Board of Directors Events | Linli Studio
• Nataly Huff, CEO & Strategic Advisor @ Innovate Forward Marketing & Marketing Director @ WeMN

Part of Twin Cities Startup Week 2026, September 14–18.

Your pitch deck is complete. You are dressed for the occasion. Now prepare your voice, your body, and your authentic self. Learn quick, accessible theatrical techniques to manage nerves, strengthen your presence, connect with your audience, and land your pitch with impact and confidence—in a way that feels unmistakably like you.

Speakers:

• Denice Burbach - An arts educator, director, and higher-education faculty member with more than two decades of experience spanning professional arts organizations and classrooms from college to early childhood. Her work centers on helping people find their authentic voice, build confidence, and connect with an audience through storytelling and performance. Drawing on a career in theatre, directing, and education, Denice brings practical, accessible performance techniques to the entrepreneurial stage—no acting experience required.
• Zelia Gonzales - A Minneapolis-based clown, improviser, and facilitator, they bring an element of play, comfort, and confidence to your stage presence. They hold a Bachelors in Industrial and Labor Relations from Cornell University and a Masters in Creative Leadership from Minneapolis College of Art and Design.
• Special thanks to Minneapolis College of Art and Design and its Creative Entrepreneurship program, where students learn to turn creative ideas into viable ventures through hands-on experience in business development, design thinking, project management, and innovation. We're grateful to partner with a program actively preparing the next generation of creative entrepreneurs.

Part of Twin Cities Startup Week 2026, September 14–18.

During this shared showcase, meet student entrepreneurs from Minneapolis College of Art and Design (MCAD) and St. Catherine University and get a look at the ideas, ventures, and creative projects they’ve been bringing to life through their respective entrepreneurship programs.

Students from both campuses will be tabling throughout the showcase and eager to share what they’re building, what they’ve learned, and where their ideas could go next. Come support the next generation of Twin Cities founders, discover what’s emerging from two distinctly different campus communities, and meet some of the students who could be shaping the future of our local entrepreneurial ecosystem.

Part of Twin Cities Startup Week 2026, September 14–18.

This panel is focused on helping founders understand federal resources, funding pathways, and commercialization opportunities they may not realize they have access to. Brought to you by Brown Venture Group & Federal Mashup Labs, this talk will be featuring representatives who can speak to different pathways for accessing federal resources. Potential speakers/organizations:

• USPTO — patents and protecting innovation
• Federal Laboratory Consortium (FLC) — technology transfer opportunities
• NASA / SBIR / other federal funding programs
• OTAs and other transactional authorities
• Other organizations helping founders understand federal funding pathways and opportunities

Part of Twin Cities Startup Week 2026, September 14–18.

Finding your first customers can feel overwhelming when there are a hundred different things you could be doing to grow your business. This hands-on workshop helps founders narrow their focus, identify the problem they need to solve, and build an actionable plan for finding their first, or next, 10 customers.

Drawing on more than 20 years of experience building companies and advising early-stage startups, this session will move beyond GTM theory and help attendees leave with a 30-day action plan they can actually put to work.

Speakers:

• Tim Bursch, Go-to-Market Advisor: Tim will focus on the early go-to-market work required to identify the right customers and create a practical plan for reaching and winning them.

Part of Twin Cities Startup Week 2026, September 14–18.

It’s easier than ever to turn an idea into something real. But moving faster doesn’t necessarily mean you’re building the right thing. Before founders invest in prototypes, engineering, manufacturing, or AI-generated code, there are critical decisions that determine whether a product has a real chance of succeeding.

This panel brings together product builders across physical products, medtech, SaaS, and AI-built consumer technology to explore what actually deserves your attention before and during the build. How do you know what customers really need, especially when they can’t articulate it themselves? Which assumptions should you validate before investing resources? What should AI accelerate, and where does human judgment become even more important? And how do you make product decisions today that won’t create expensive problems when it’s time to scale?

Attendees will leave with a clearer way to think about the decisions between idea → validation → build → scale, regardless of whether they’re building software, hardware, or something in between.

Speakers:

• Rick Beddoe - Founder, Steam Factory
• Raghu Velagaleti - Enterprise Engineering Leader & Founder
• Becca Poindexter - MedTech Leader and Fractional CTO

Part of Twin Cities Startup Week 2026, September 14–18.

The Twin Cities have long been home to one of the country’s most robust music scenes. And some of the world's most enduring music artists have spent decades thriving at many of the same things founders and leaders are challenged to do: create and perform under extraordinary pressure; build fiercely loyal teams; cultivate raving fans; reinvent themselves across decades to stay relevant, and survive failure in public.

In what promises to be anything but another stuffy leadership talk, Bethany Wrede Peterson looks outside the traditional business leadership playbook to explore what rockstars can teach us about sustainable leadership and high performance.

Drawing from her work as a High Performance Coach™, interviews and research with artists from her forthcoming book, and the High Performance Habits™ you’ll discover:

• Why behind every great leader lies a true lust for life
• The 3 stages of leadership and the 6 pillars of high performance that the world’s greatest music artists finetune their lives around (and which stage founders often miss!)
• The No.1 mindset to lead yourself through uncertainty, change, and high-pressure environments (from the negotiating table to the dinner table)
• How to front your own "band" (your team, your family, your mission, and your own life) without losing your voice in the process

Whether you're a C-suite exec, a startup founder, a student, or a stay-at-home parent, you'll leave with practical tools, unexpected insight, and a fresh rhythm to live and lead at full volume. No guitar required.

Bethany Wrede Peterson is an equal parts personal growth + music junkie with waaaay too many band T's. Her purpose in life is to help others feel alive and connected: to themselves, to their possibilities, to their relationships, to the music, and to the moment. She is a Certified High Performance Coach™, a Certified Positive Psychology Coach, speaker, podcaster and author based near Minneapolis. She partners with clients globally. As Founder of the Schoolhouse Sessions, she brings people together for courageous conversations that move them – through the power of three perfectly chosen songs. Connect with her at bethanywredepeterson.com

Speakers:

• Bethany Wrede Peterson, Certified High Performance Coach™ & Certified Positive Psychology Coach

Part of Twin Cities Startup Week 2026, September 14–18.

The conversation doesn’t have to end when the session does. Speaker Office Hours create dedicated space for 1:1 support between speakers and attendees in a more personal, informal setting. Come ask the question you didn’t get to during Q&A, dig deeper into something you heard on stage, get individual perspective on a challenge you’re working through, or simply meet someone whose experience sparked your curiosity.

No formal presentation, no additional prep. Just a dedicated space for one-on-one conversations, useful questions, and connections that can continue well beyond the week.

Part of Twin Cities Startup Week 2026, September 14–18.

Professional headshots for $50, normally a $170 value. Egobee sets up a headshot station at MCAD on Wednesday afternoon. You get two retouched headshots and your raw files, edited on site, so you leave with them the same day.

Reserve your spot: https://www.tcstartupweek.com/headshots

Paying ahead reserves your spot. You can also pay on site if there is still room. Egobee is a local marketing agency founded by Francis Sampah, a co-founder of Black Tech Talent and a BETA cohort alum. A second station runs Tuesday evening at the Mega Med Social.

Part of Twin Cities Startup Week 2026, September 14–18.

Building a successful business requires more than a great idea. You need to understand who you are serving, validate what they need, and develop a practical approach for turning customer interest into revenue.

Led by Christina Pecoraro, founder of Lotus Business Solutions, this interactive workshop will help entrepreneurs strengthen their understanding of their ideal customer and build a more focused approach to sales. Christina will be joined by Nick Tietz, founder of ILT Academy, who will contribute insights on customer discovery, validation, and lean startup principles.

Through guided exercises and discussion, participants will clarify their ideal customer and value proposition, identify assumptions that need testing, and begin building a repeatable approach to reaching and converting customers.

You’ll leave with greater customer clarity, a stronger sales foundation, and practical next steps you can put to work immediately.

Speakers:

• Christina Pecoraro, CEO & Founder @ Lotus Business Solutions LLC
• Nick Tietz, Founder & CEO of ILT Academy

Part of Twin Cities Startup Week 2026, September 14–18.

Moving an AI product from prototype to production introduces problems that aren't always visible while you're building it. This panel will look at some of the most common ones: infrastructure that needs to support AI at scale, unexpected behavior and bias in AI outputs, cybersecurity and organizational risk, and the human challenges that come with introducing AI into the way people work.

The speakers will share what they're seeing in their own work, where companies tend to run into problems, and what founders and AI teams should be thinking about earlier in the development process. Attendees should leave with a better understanding of what to plan for before putting an AI product into the hands of customers or integrating it deeply into their organization.

Speakers & Perspectives:

• Yossi Eliaz, AI Infrastructure Leader — Infrastructure: Yossi will speak to the technical infrastructure required to run AI agents at scale, including isolation, compute, concurrency, performance, and cost.
• John Haggerty, AI / Cognitive Bias Expert — AI behavior: John's perspective focuses on what the AI actually produces, particularly cognitive bias, unexpected outputs, and issues that may not surface until a product is being used by real people.
• Younouss Adjibi, Cybersecurity & Risk Leader — Risk and resilience: This perspective adds cybersecurity, governance, risk visibility, and operational resilience, including how companies can make more informed decisions about where and how they deploy AI.
• Shannon Stauff, Organizational Change & AI Adoption Leader — People and adoption: Shannon will focus on what happens inside the organization when AI is introduced, including trust, resistance, capacity, agency, relationships, and whether the people expected to use the technology are actually positioned to succeed with it.

Part of Twin Cities Startup Week 2026, September 14–18.

Following Federal Funding Mechanisms You Didn’t Know You Had Access To, stick around to strengthen the connections that make those pathways possible. Meet founders, federal funding experts, researchers, ecosystem partners, and others working to turn innovation into commercialization opportunities, and build the relationships that can help move ideas forward.

Part of Twin Cities Startup Week 2026, September 14–18.

When should a founder actually bring in a lawyer, and what should you have figured out before you do?

Join Avisen Legal for a practical conversation about the legal decisions that show up as a company moves from idea to startup to growing business, including formation, fundraising, contracts, governance, protecting what you're building, and preparing for opportunities you may not see coming yet.

Avisen knows that journey firsthand. The firm worked alongside Minnesota startup 75F for more than a decade, from its early financing and growth through its eventual acquisition by Carrier Global in 2026.

Come learn when legal counsel can actually make a difference, what you can handle yourself, and how to build the right legal foundation before the stakes get higher.

Speakers:

• Todd Taylor, Business Counsel at Avisen Legal
• Deepinder Singh, CEO @ 75F

Part of Twin Cities Startup Week 2026, September 14–18.

You may not have the biggest marketing budget, but you have something your larger competitors can't replicate: your story.

This workshop will help founders uncover the stories already hiding inside their businesses, from why you started and the customers you serve to your employees, process, failures, community, and mission.

You'll learn how to recognize which moments are worth sharing and turn them into content that helps people understand, remember, and connect with your brand. Instead of constantly wondering what to post or trying to compete with companies that can simply spend more, you'll leave with a new way to look at your own business as a source of marketing material and a clearer idea of the stories only you can tell.

Speakers & Perspectives:

• Joe Ruiz, Owner @ Social Eye Marketing

Part of Twin Cities Startup Week 2026, September 14–18.

What does it take to build a business that creates meaningful impact and actually works in the real world?

Educators from St. Catherine University join local business leaders to explore how interdisciplinary entrepreneurship addresses pressing environmental challenges. The panel bridges academic theory and market reality, delivering actionable best practices for participants launching or scaling purpose-driven ventures in Minnesota.

Attendees will leave with practical perspectives for building businesses where people, planet, purpose, and profitability don't have to be competing priorities.

Speakers:

• Greg White, Chief Technology Officer, Prototype Garage
• Sarah Lechowich, CEO & Founder, True North Roofing
• Dr. Paula Furey, Endowed Professor, St. Catherine University
• Dr. Emily Worrall, Assistant Professor, St. Catherine University
• Fawzi Awad (Moderator), Associate Professor, St. Catherine University

Part of Twin Cities Startup Week 2026, September 14–18.

AI is changing how organizations create, connect with customers, and compete, but where is it actually taking marketing and creative work next?

Leaders from Knock, MCAD, and the enterprise AI landscape will explore how AI is reshaping MarTech, creative innovation, and the way organizations adopt new technology. The conversation will look at where AI creates real competitive advantage, what remains uniquely human, and how founders and business leaders can make thoughtful decisions about where AI belongs in their work.

Speakers:

• Lili Hall, Founder & CEO of Knock Marketing
• Michael Arulfo, Chief AI Officer & Field CTO @ Cadre and GestaltIQ
• Olaf Kuhlke, Chair of Creative Entrepreneurship & Professor @ MCAD
• Moderator: Linda Finley, BETA Board Chair @ BETA (beta.mn)

Part of Twin Cities Startup Week 2026, September 14–18.

Early-stage founders have to make a lot of go-to-market decisions before they have the budget or team to do everything the “right” way. What positioning work actually matters right now? What can you do yourself? When do you need a salesperson? Which parts of your marketing can wait? And where is outside help actually worth paying for?

Erin Miska and Barbara Knott will walk through the early-stage GTM process from both the marketing and sales sides, including what founders can skip, what they should own themselves, and where getting help can make a meaningful difference. Then they'll turn the second half of the session over to founders in the room for open Q&A. Bring the sales and marketing questions you're actually dealing with, whether that's positioning, messaging, pipeline, first sales hires, or figuring out what you should be working on next. Attendees should leave with a clearer sense of where to focus their limited time and resources and what they can start doing differently Monday morning.

Speakers & Perspectives:

• Erin Miska, B2B SaaS Product & Marketing Leader - Product positioning and marketing: With 15 years of B2B SaaS product management and marketing experience, Erin will focus on helping founders make sure the market understands what they've built, who it's for, and why it matters. She'll bring the marketing and positioning side of building an early-stage GTM strategy.
• Barbara Knott, B2B SaaS Sales Advisor - Sales strategy and process: Barbara will bring experience selling and building sales teams at companies including Oracle and Workday to help early-stage B2B SaaS founders think through sales strategy, pipeline, process, and when it makes sense to make their first sales hires.

Part of Twin Cities Startup Week 2026, September 14–18.

Join us on September 16 for an energy innovation mixer. Mingle with startups, utilities, energy experts, investors, and other local partners at Malcolm Yards.

This event is part of the GridReady startup showcase, featuring the country's most promising energy startups working in grid modernization, electrification, and energy storage. Learn more about their technology innovation and network with other ecosystem partners working to advance our energy system and entrepreneurship in Minnesota.

Light appetizers will be served. Beer and wine will be hosted. Additional food and beverage options will be available for purchase from other Malcolm Yards vendors.

Speakers: GridReady startup showcase participants!

This event is put on by GridCatalyst, please RSVP for their event here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/gridready-industry-mixer-tickets-1992487336259

Part of Twin Cities Startup Week 2026, September 14–18.

BETA helps Minnesota’s early-stage founders move their companies forward through accelerator programming, mentorship, connections, and access to the broader startup ecosystem. The BETA Showcase brings those founders and their companies directly to the community.

Throughout the evening, meet emerging Minnesota startups, see what they’re building, and talk directly with the founders about the problems they’re solving and where their companies are headed. There are no formal pitches or presentations. Instead, you’ll have the opportunity to explore the companies at your own pace, ask questions, see products in action, and make connections.

Whether you’re looking for companies to invest in, work for, partner with, buy from, or simply want to know what’s being built next in Minnesota, come meet the founders and celebrate the ideas moving through our startup ecosystem.

Part of Twin Cities Startup Week 2026, September 14–18.

Founders, investors, operators, students, anyone curious about the startup world — this one's for you. Whether you're building a company, backing one, or just want to know what it's actually like to work in startups, come hang out and meet the people behind it. Grab a drink, meet the Idea Fund team and portfolio founders, and get a feel for what's happening in the ecosystem. Thinking about a career in startups? This is a great low-pressure way to learn more and make some connections. No pitch required, just come curious. Know someone else who should be here? Bring them along — the more the merrier.

Hosted by Idea Fund of La Crosse. Open to everyone, pass or no pass. RSVP with Idea Fund: https://luma.com/wogfhtkw

Part of Twin Cities Startup Week 2026, September 14–18.

What if you didn't have to figure out who to talk to at a networking event? Let us make the introductions for you.

This is an experimental form of live networking where everyone in the room will be matched in real time based on shared values, interests, and what they're hoping to find during Twin Cities Startup Week and within the community.

When you arrive, you'll scan a QR code and answer a few quick questions. From there, our matchmaking technology will do the work. You'll be matched into four 10-minute conversations throughout the session, each with someone selected specifically for you.

Come curious and ready to meet your people.

Please arrive at the session start time! Matchmaking happens live based on who's in the room, and the algorithm needs to know from the start who it's matching throughout the rest of the session.

Powered by CareerNav: This experience is made possible by Robert, Founder of CareerNav, technology originally built to match companies and potential hires based on shared values. Robert has graciously adapted his matchmaking technology specifically for TCSW to help attendees find meaningful connections with each other.

Part of Twin Cities Startup Week 2026, September 14–18.

Most of what you walk away with from a sale is shaped long before there is an offer on the table. You spend months with the deal team getting the terms right for the business, but who is walking you through how the net number will land for you personally and what that number can make possible?  This panel is about what founders and investors should be asking while they are still building.

• How do I start thinking about my number?
• What are the tax implications?
• What opportunities do I have to optimize what I ultimately keep?
• What could a sale mean for intergenerational planning, philanthropy and the next chapter?
• And what else sits alongside the business that I should be thinking about?

The headline sale price is only part of the story. The real opportunity is understanding your net number early enough to shape the outcome and maximize what your exit can make possible.

Speakers:

• Brian Martin, Managing Partner & Shareholder @ Accredited Investors Wealth Management®: As Managing Partner, Brian co-leads Accredited’s Executive Committee and is responsible for the firm’s Strategic Planning. Brian also oversees the firm’s Operations and Wealth Management activity. He began his career at Accredited as a summer intern and in the 15 years since has had roles in nearly every part of Accredited’s business, giving him a unique perspective into the wide range of people and functions that must be integrated to deliver truly comprehensive wealth management. He believes a highly functioning team allows Accredited’s advisors to focus on their mission of building deep relationships with their clients. As a member of the wealth management team, Brian leads client relationships and has expertise in executive compensation and helping families manage complex estates and multi-generational planning strategies.
• Jacob Wolkowitz, Chief Investment Officer & Shareholder @ Accredited Investors Wealth Management®: As Chief Investment Officer at Accredited, Jacob spearheads the investment group that manages client portfolios. He is a member of Accredited’s investment committee, meets directly with clients, and coordinates with Accredited’s Wealth Managers to create innovative solutions for clients’ long-term planning needs. Jacob began his career in investment banking and has expertise in investment analysis, equity research and market strategy. Through the years, Jacob has served as an informational source in the Wall Street Journal as well as appearing on CNBC and KSTP.
• Justin Kaufenberg, Managing Director @ Rally Ventures: Justin Kaufenberg is the co-managing director at Rally Ventures, a Minneapolis and Menlo Park based early stage venture capital firm with more than $1B under management. Prior to Rally Ventures, Justin was the co-founder and CEO of SportsEngine, a leading youth sports technology platform. SportsEngine was acquired by NBC Sports in 2019. Justin stepped down as CEO of SportsEngine in 2019 and joined Rally Ventures full time. Inside of Rally, Justin makes traditional seed and Series A investments into fintech, insuretech and cybersecurity companies and also starts and spins companies out. Justin is the co-founder of Yardstik, JustiFi, Vertical Insure, OttoSport Ai, Blank Metal, Slingshot Insurance, Reliever.ai and LEVR.
• Lauren Winter Routhier, Partner @ Stinson LLP: Lauren works with individuals, families, and closely-held businesses to identify their estate planning goals and craft plans that best serve their interests. She works with clients on tax planning, charitable giving, business succession planning, prenuptial agreements, estate administration and disputed probate and trust matters. Lauren's training as a qualified mediator informs her approach to resolving probate, trust, and family business disputes, and her practice with individuals and families in estate planning. Her understanding of human dynamics, along with her technical skills, helps her guide individuals and families through some of life's most challenging events.

Part of Twin Cities Startup Week 2026, September 14–18.

Building the right board and advisor bench can be one of the highest-leverage moves an early-stage founder makes, and one of the easiest to get wrong. This panel brings together experienced founders and investors to talk through how to identify the right board members and advisors, structure those relationships (equity, time commitment, expectations), and get real value out of them as your company scales.

Topics will include:

• When and why to formalize a board vs. an informal advisor network
• What to look for in a board member or advisor, and where to find them
• Structuring equity, compensation, and governance terms
• Setting expectations and cadence to keep relationships productive
• Common mistakes founders make in board and advisor relationships and how to avoid them

Speakers:

• Moderator: Scott Burns, General Partner at Mairs & Power Venture Capital
• Panelists:
• Chad Halverson, Founder of When I Work
• Janice Tam, Founder of TrueToForm
• Alex Steinman, Co-Founder at The Coven

Part of Twin Cities Startup Week 2026, September 14–18.

Successfully implementing AI is as much about the people and systems around the technology as the technology itself. This panel will look at how organizations can introduce AI in ways that reflect how people actually work, where human judgment and connection still matter, and what needs to happen for new tools to become part of everyday operations rather than another pilot that gets abandoned.

The conversation will cover understanding the business before automating it, preparing people for changes to their roles and workflows, measuring whether AI is actually being adopted, and deciding where human involvement should remain central. Speakers will bring perspectives from organizational AI implementation, change management, community-centered work, and human-in-the-loop product design.

Speakers & Perspectives:

• Emily Balfour - AI that understands the business: Emily will focus on starting with the company's existing work, knowledge, and processes before deciding where AI belongs, and why AI implementations often fail when the technology is introduced without enough understanding of the business it is meant to support.
• Aliza Bach - Knowing where humans still matter: Aliza will bring a community-centered perspective to the conversation, particularly around situations where trust, lived experience, relationships, and person-to-person support shouldn't simply be replaced by technology.
• Sonya Hogie - Change management and adoption: Sonya will focus on what it takes for people to actually adopt AI-enabled ways of working, including change readiness, resistance, role and process changes, training, and measuring adoption through behavior and value rather than simply whether a tool was deployed.
• Akshat Koirala - Human-in-the-loop design: Akshat will bring the perspective of designing AI systems that intentionally keep people involved, particularly from his work exploring how technology can support learning without removing the role of educators, judgment, and human interaction.

Part of Twin Cities Startup Week 2026, September 14–18.

There comes a point when doing everything yourself stops being scrappy and starts holding your company back. But building beyond yourself doesn’t necessarily mean immediately hiring a team or raising a round.

This panel is for founders navigating that transition from “I can do this myself” to “I need other people and resources around me.” How do you figure out what your business actually needs next? Is it your first hire, a co-founder, an advisor, specialized expertise, outside funding, or simply the right connection? And how do you bring those resources in without adding unnecessary cost or complexity before you’re ready?

Hear from leaders who have helped companies navigate funding, team building, outside expertise, and organizational growth about how to recognize what you’ve outgrown, identify the gaps that matter most, and make smarter decisions about what and who to bring into your company next.

Speakers & Perspectives:

• Luke Riordan, Founder @ Dayta - Knowing when you’ve outgrown doing it yourself: Luke will bring the founder perspective from 15 years of growing Dayta, including raising capital, building a 30+ person team, developing partnerships, and eventually stepping out of the CEO role. He’ll speak to recognizing when something that once made sense for you to own has become something the company needs someone else to do better.
• Melissa Fors Shackelford, Advisor / Board Leader - Bringing in expertise without hiring for everything: Melissa will focus on identifying the knowledge and experience your company is missing and deciding how to access it. Drawing from her experience with advisory boards, she’ll explore when you need an employee versus an advisor, mentor, consultant, or other outside expert, and how to make those relationships genuinely useful.
• Kathleen Frey, Founder & Principal @ Frey Advisory – Building the structure your next stage of growth requires: Kathleen will focus on what happens when a founder’s business has outgrown the way it currently operates. Drawing on her experience leading growth, client success, and cross-functional teams and advising organizations through periods of change, she’ll explore how founders can identify the capabilities their company is missing, build the right support around themselves, and create enough structure for the business to grow beyond the founder.

Raising money is only half the equation. The other half is knowing what to actually expect from the people who back you - whether that's an angel writing your first check or a VC leading your seed round - and how to pick investors who'll show up for you later, not just write a check now.

This panel brings together three Platform leaders from early-stage VC firms to demystify what "investor support" really looks like at every stage. What can you expect from an angel versus a VC? How do you evaluate that before you sign anything? Useful even if you're months away from raising and just want to know what good support looks like before you're in the room negotiating it.

SPEAKERS:

• Jim Conti - Talent Partner at Hyde Park Venture Partners
• Stephanie Rich - Partner, Platform at Bread & Butter Ventures
• Shannon Shroyer - Head of Operations and Platform at Matchstick Ventures

LOCATION: JBD Lecture Hall, downstairs in The Campus Center at Macalester

Part of Twin Cities Startup Week 2026, September 14–18.

Strong entrepreneurial ecosystems don't happen just because resources, programs, and people exist in the same place. They grow when people intentionally build connections across communities, make it easier for entrepreneurs to find the people and resources they need, and create opportunities for people who have historically been outside the center of the ecosystem to participate.

This panel will look at community building as an active part of economic and entrepreneurial development. The conversation will explore what it takes to build communities people actually want to participate in, connect rural and metro entrepreneurs, increase representation and access, and use partnerships and existing networks to create stronger pathways for founders.

Speakers & Perspectives:

• Thomas Knoll, Founder / Community Builder @ Woven Coops — Building communities people belong to: Thomas will bring decades of experience building online and startup communities, including his work in the Twin Cities and Downtown Las Vegas, and speak to what actually creates participation, connection, and a lasting sense of community.
• Cameron Payne, Rural Business Accelerator Leader @ CEDA — Connecting rural and metro ecosystems: Cameron will focus on the geographic gaps in Minnesota's entrepreneurial ecosystem and what it takes to make networks, resources, and relationships accessible to founders outside the Twin Cities.
• Juan Llerena, Founder / Community Builder @ JLLB MEDIA — Representation and community access: Juan will bring his experience as an entrepreneur, nonprofit leader, and community builder, with a particular focus on reaching Latino entrepreneurs and creating more intentional pathways into Minnesota's entrepreneurial community.
• Nicholas Donnelly, Founder / Operator — Partnerships that expand an ecosystem: Nicholas will bring experience building companies and partnerships across different markets, including his work in the UK and the launch of a professional women's rugby league in the U.S., to discuss how partnerships, brands, and networks can bring new people into an ecosystem and help communities grow beyond their existing circles.

Part of Twin Cities Startup Week 2026, September 14–18.

When sales aren't growing, the problem isn't necessarily sales. You might be talking to the wrong buyer, struggling to explain why they should care, losing people somewhere in your funnel, failing to turn interested prospects into actual customers, or leaving revenue on the table once you've won the account.

This panel will look at the different places revenue can get stuck and how to identify where your problem actually is. The speakers bring expertise across positioning, sales funnels, founder-led selling, and pricing, giving founders a way to look at their revenue process from the first message a potential customer hears through the value of an existing account. Attendees should leave better able to diagnose where they're losing revenue and what part of their growth strategy deserves their attention next.

Speakers & Perspectives:

• Meredith Clause, Chief Articulator @ The StoryCore - Positioning and the buyer: Meredith will focus on whether you're selling the right problem to the right person in the first place. She'll bring her experience helping founders identify who actually writes the check, articulate the problem that matters to them, and lead with proof and value rather than technology or features.
• Jenna Redfield, Founder / Marketing Strategist - Funnel and conversion: Jenna will focus on what happens once you've established your positioning: how potential customers move through a sales funnel, where founders lose them along the way, and how AI can support that process without replacing the fundamentals.
• Rachel Edwards, Founder & CEO @ Insperai - Building a company that can grow beyond you: Rachel will focus on the human side of moving beyond solopreneurship: understanding how you operate as a founder, recognizing where you need complementary strengths, and being intentional about the people you bring around you. Drawing on her work in behavioral analysis, leadership, and team dynamics, she’ll explore how founders can build teams that work well together, delegate more effectively, and avoid creating unnecessary friction as the company grows.

Part of Twin Cities Startup Week 2026, September 14–18.

During this showcase, meet student entrepreneurs from Macalester College’s Department of Entrepreneurship and Innovation and get a look at the ideas, ventures, and projects they’ve been bringing to life. Macalester’s entrepreneurship programs are built around turning bold ideas into action through hands-on experimentation, problem solving, and real-world learning.

Students will be tabling throughout the showcase and eager to share what they’ve been working on, what they’ve learned, and where their ideas might go next. Come support the next generation of Twin Cities founders, discover what students are already building in our local ecosystem, and maybe meet someone whose work you’ll be hearing a lot more about in the years ahead.

Part of Twin Cities Startup Week 2026, September 14–18.

Do you want to know what it's like to pitch your startup to investors? Join us in the Investor Arena to watch startup founders pitch to investors. We'll feature startups at various stages - Preseed, Seed, Series A - who will pitch, navigate investor Q&A, and receive feedback.

This is for:

• Founders: See what the process is like, from constructing and presenting a winning pitch to navigating real-time Q&A.
• Investors: Preview innovative companies and talent, and learn from seasoned angels and VCs.
• Students: Watch real-world entrepreneurs in action and learn what a venture-backable company looks like.

Judging Panel:

• Sara Russick, Co-Founder & Managing Director of Gopher Angels, Founding General Partner of Capita3 -- Host and judge
• Stephanie Rich, Partner, Platform at Bread & Butter Ventures
• Elise Riniker, Senior Associate at Mairs & Power Venture Capital
• Sri Manikandan, Investment Analyst at Idea Fund of La Crosse

Part of Twin Cities Startup Week 2026, September 14–18.

You don't need to be a software engineer to build real software with AI, you need to stop handing the AI the decisions only you can make. I built an AI tutoring platform solo this way; it's now in its first university pilot. We'll cover the three practices that make AI-assisted building hold up past the first impressive demo: specifying before you prompt, treating your documentation as the AI's operating environment, and verifying output against the expertise only you have. Then we'll do it live - bring something you're building and we'll work through one idea with the room. No coding experience required.

Speakers & Perspectives:

• Jason Clement, AI Product Builder: Jason will speak to using AI to expand what an early founder can build themselves without handing AI the domain knowledge and judgment that makes their idea valuable.

Part of Twin Cities Startup Week 2026, September 14–18.

The conversation doesn’t have to end when the session does. Speaker Office Hours create dedicated space for 1:1 support between speakers and attendees in a more personal, informal setting. Come ask the question you didn’t get to during Q&A, dig deeper into something you heard on stage, get individual perspective on a challenge you’re working through, or simply meet someone whose experience sparked your curiosity.

No formal presentation, no additional prep. Just a dedicated space for one-on-one conversations, useful questions, and connections that can continue well beyond the week.

Part of Twin Cities Startup Week 2026, September 14–18.

This session gives founders an honest, investor's-eye view of what actually shapes a fundraise, beyond the standard pitch advice. We'll walk through patterns we've observed: what founder behavior builds investor confidence during a raise, and what quietly undermines it, from communication cadence to how a 'no' gets handled.

Our goal with this talk is genuine transparency by giving founders insight into what investors are actually noticing, so they can walk away with something concretely useful for their next raise.

Speakers:

• Garrett Lauderdale, Vice President of Idea Fund of La Crosse

Part of Twin Cities Startup Week 2026, September 14–18.

The things that get a business started aren’t always the things that help it grow. As customers, revenue, and complexity increase, founders have to make decisions about what to standardize, what to delegate, where to invest, and which parts of the business need to evolve before they become bottlenecks.

This panel brings together leaders with experience scaling companies, building operational systems, designing resilient business models, and growing go-to-market engines. They’ll explore what founders should be paying attention to as they move beyond the earliest stage, how to recognize when something that used to work is starting to hold the company back, and how to build for growth without adding unnecessary complexity too soon.

Speakers & Perspectives:

• Rebecca Hoeft - Making growth everyone’s job: Rebecca will explore what changes when growth can no longer sit solely with the founder or sales team, and how companies can build a culture where people across the organization understand their role in creating customer value and driving the business forward.
• Cody Anderson - Building a go-to-market engine that can scale: Drawing from his experience helping Carta grow from roughly $1M to $400M in revenue, Cody will bring the perspective of what changes as sales and go-to-market move from founder-led efforts into repeatable systems capable of supporting significantly larger growth.
• Jeff Eddy - Building the systems behind the growth: Jeff will focus on the operational infrastructure growing teams need, including how to create shared systems, workflows, and sources of truth that allow a company to become more sophisticated without burying itself in process.
• Peter Hayes, Small Business Designer & Consultant @ Start Green - Designing a business built to last: Peter will bring a business-design perspective to scaling, challenging founders to think beyond growth for growth’s sake and consider how their business model, resources, and decisions can create a company that becomes more resilient as it grows.

A featured event of Twin Cities Startup Week 2026, September 14–18.

Thursday, September 17 | 2:30–6:30 PM Macalester — Mairs Concert Hall, 130 S Macalester St, St. Paul

Minnesota has the raw ingredients for a startup boom: Fortune 500 headquarters, world-class research institutions, and no shortage of ambitious founders. So why do we keep losing ground on job growth and available capital to smaller markets we should be beating? That's the question at the center of TCB Talks: Minnesota Capital Forum.

Twin Cities Business brings venture capital leaders, corporate executives, and the founders building tomorrow's companies into one room to discuss how to unlock $1 billion in new startup capital and build the economic engine for Minnesota's next generation.

You'll hear where local venture capital really stands, what thriving markets are doing right, and how we level up here at home. Plus, hear from founders building Minnesota's future, and the investors betting on them, in a showcase of the emerging companies that could define our next generation of growth.

Agenda

2:30–3:00 PM | Registration

3:00–3:10 PM | Welcome Charlie Rybeck, vice president of editorial innovation, Twin Cities Business, sets the stage.

3:10–4:00 PM | The State of Local Venture Capital Matt Lewis, VP of Partnership Strategy at Greater MSP, examines where Minnesota stands and what other markets are getting right.

4:05–4:55 PM | How to Level Up the Startup Scene in Minnesota Moderated by Lucas Giambelluca, President for Bank of America Twin Cities, this panel gathers leading local investors to share the ideas that could reshape our ecosystem.

Panelists include:

• Rob Weber, Co-Founder & Managing Partner at Great North Ventures
• Mary Grove, Managing Partner at Bread and Butter Ventures
• Ryan Broshar, Founder & Partner at Matchstick Ventures

5:00–5:45 PM | Founder Showcase A curated group of investors will introduce founders from the companies they're backing, giving the audience an up-close look at the people, ideas, and emerging startups that could shape Minnesota's next generation of growth.

Hear from:

• Reed Robinson, Groove Capital
• Scott Burns, Mairs & Power
• Ryan Broshar, Matchstick Ventures (pending)

5:45–6:30 PM | Networking Connect with the leaders, investors, and founders shaping what comes next.

Part of Twin Cities Startup Week 2026, September 14–18.

Blockchain and fintech are converging faster than most institutions can keep up with, from tokenized assets to decentralized capital models rewriting how businesses raise and move money.

In this interview-style conversation, Noah Lee of 1752vc sits down with Joe Rotondi, co-founder of Unit Network, to unpack where fintech innovation and blockchain infrastructure are headed next. Rotondi, an economist, lawyer, and long-time builder in the Web3 and token economy space, will share how Unit Network is approaching tokenization, decentralized finance, and the infrastructure needed to bring the next wave of founders and investors on-chain. Expect a candid, back-and-forth conversation rather than a scripted pitch: real talk on what is working, what is overhyped, and what founders and investors in the room should be watching.

Speakers:

• Joe Rotondi, Co-Founder @ Unit Network
• Interviewer: Noah Lee, 1752vc

A hands-on community volunteer day for Minnesota nonprofits and the tech community.

The Great Minnesota Give Back Hack brings nonprofit teams together with technologists, builders, mentors, and problem-solvers to work on real challenges. Come ready to listen, build, advise, and help teams move practical work forward.

We will gather at the end of the day to share results and talk about where the work can go next.

Hackathon-only registration is free. Register as a Hackathon Volunteer.

Want to attend the full Twin Cities Startup Week lineup? Get an All-Access Week Pass: https://www.tcstartupweek.com/tickets

Hosted as part of Twin Cities Startup Week 2026.

Part of Twin Cities Startup Week 2026, September 14–18.

What if we got better at identifying what people can actually do, rather than relying on degrees, job titles, and traditional credentials to tell us?

Goodwill-Easter Seals Minnesota and the Minneapolis Regional Chamber are bringing their Skills-Based Talent Accelerator work to TCSW, with a particular focus on Minnesota’s technology workforce. Skills-Based Talent Facilitator Allen Mavis will share practical ways growing companies can define the skills they actually need, recognize capable people they might otherwise overlook, and use a skills-based approach to hire, develop, and retain talent as their needs change.

It’s also a fitting way to kick off the Great Minnesota Give Back Hack, a day built around recognizing the skills people already have and putting them to work where they can make a difference.

Speaker:

• Allen Mavis, Skills-Based Talent Facilitator @ Minnesota Skills-Based Employer Accelerator

Need to get some work done between sessions, or can’t stick around for talks all day? Stay in the atmosphere of Twin Cities Startup Week by working alongside the community at Wellworth Coworking.

Wellworth has graciously opened its Downtown St. Paul coworking space to TCSW attendees for the day! Find a comfortable place to focus, catch up on work, or strike up a conversation with someone else building something interesting. Come for a few hours or make it your home base between sessions.

Part of Twin Cities Startup Week 2026, September 14–18.

What did you want to talk about this week that never made it onto the agenda?

Unconference Conversations puts the topics in your hands. At the start of the session, attendees will submit the conversations they still want to have. We’ll look for overlapping interests, group people around the topics they care about, and break into small, informal discussions.

Maybe something you heard this week left you wanting to dig deeper. Maybe you’re wrestling with a challenge and want perspectives from other founders. Or maybe there’s an entire topic you wish TCSW had covered.

Bring a question, suggest a topic, or simply join a conversation that sounds interesting. It’s a different kind of networking, built around meeting the people who actually want to talk about the same things you do.

Part of Twin Cities Startup Week 2026, September 14–18.

The Twin Cities are full of communities doing great work, but too often those communities never end up in the same room.

Where Ecosystems Collide is an open invitation to meetup organizers, community builders, professional associations, industry groups, nonprofits, and ecosystem organizations from across the region to come together for one big networking gathering.

Come represent your group, bring your community, and discover organizations and people across the Twin Cities you may not even know exist yet. If you normally host a meetup around this time, consider making this your meetup for the week and inviting your members to join you here.

No advance signup is needed. If you have signage that helps people find your group or a QR code so they can follow along for future events, bring it along.

Come join & meet groups like Minnestar & MN Rising Professionals!

The goal is simple: get all of our different ecosystems in the same room and see what connections happen when they collide.

Part of Twin Cities Startup Week 2026, September 14–18.

This is where Twin Cities Startup Week ends with something big.

Ten startups. One stage. One regional champion. And a chance to represent the Twin Cities on the global stage, competing for a $1,000,000 investment prize at the Startup World Cup Grand Finale in San Francisco.

The top 10 startups selected from across the region will take the stage for fast, four-minute pitches, followed by live Q&A with a panel of investors and industry leaders. At the end, one company will be named the Twin Cities Regional Champion and advance to compete against regional winners from around the world.

But this isn’t just an event for the people pitching. The entire community is invited, and attendance is free. Come discover some of the most exciting companies being built here, meet the founders behind them, hear what investors are asking, and cheer on the startup that will represent our ecosystem on the world stage.

We’ll have networking before and after the competition, bringing together founders, investors, students, corporate leaders, mentors, and startup supporters from across the region.

Come for the pitches. Stay for the connections. And help us close out Twin Cities Startup Week by showing the world what’s being built here.