Pick your day.

Where

Classroom C301, Schulze Hall, University of St. Thomas

Who it’s for

Founders and students

Bringing back a long-standing TCSW staple, Mentor Morning is a 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.

Where

Classroom C127, Schulze Hall, University of St. Thomas

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.

Where

Classroom C127, Schulze Hall, University of St. Thomas

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.

Where

Classroom C127, Schulze Hall, University of St. Thomas

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.

Where

Schulze Auditorium, Schulze Hall, University of St. Thomas

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.

Where

Classroom C301, Schulze Hall, University of St. Thomas

Who it’s for

Everyone

Open to anyone attending Startup Week. You'll be paired with other attendees for a series of quick, timed conversations. No awkward mingling, no standing around: structured, low-pressure intros that rotate every few minutes.

Where

University of St. Thomas, C127 (Minneapolis)

This session is confirmed for the official week. Full details are still coming together. Check back as the schedule fills in.

Where

Schulze Auditorium, Schulze Hall, University of St. Thomas

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.

Where

Schulze Auditorium, Schulze Hall, University of St. Thomas

Who it’s for

Founders and students

Hear from founders who got their earliest exposure to entrepreneurship through student programs, in this case the MN Cup Student Division, and went on to build growing Minnesota companies. The founding teams behind Minneapolis Cider Company, Refr Sports, and Charm Social Tonic take the stage in succession. Moderated by Lauren Mehler Pradhan of Tesser Advisory.

Where

Classroom C127, Schulze Hall, University of St. Thomas

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.

Where

Classroom C301, Schulze Hall, University of St. Thomas

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.

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.

Where

Schulze Auditorium, Schulze Hall, University of St. Thomas

Who it’s for

Students and early founders

What does it actually look like to build your first startup while you’re still learning how entrepreneurship works? Swarn Pratap Singh, Schulze Innovation Scholar at the University of St. Thomas and Co-Founder of Notifybear, shares his experience building an AI startup as a student founder. From developing and pivoting the product to figuring out customers, funding, mentorship, and how to build with a team across continents, Swarn will share what he’s building and what he’s learning along the way. He’ll also reflect on how the Schulze School of Entrepreneurship and the broader Twin Cities startup community have shaped his experience, and what other students should know if they’re wondering whether they’re ready to start building something of their own.

Where

University of St. Thomas, Schulze Hall (Minneapolis)

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.

Where

Classroom C127, Schulze Hall, University of St. Thomas

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.

Where

LaSalle Plaza, 800 La Salle Ave

This session is confirmed for the official week. Full details are still coming together. Check back as the schedule fills in.

Where

Schulze Auditorium, Schulze Hall, University of St. Thomas

This session is confirmed for the official week. Full details are still coming together. Check back as the schedule fills in.

Where

Classroom C127, Schulze Hall, University of St. Thomas

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.

Where

University Enterprise Labs (UEL)

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.

This session is confirmed for the official week. Full details are still coming together. Check back as the schedule fills in.

Where

College Center, MCAD

This session is confirmed for the official week. Full details are still coming together. Check back as the schedule fills in.

Where

Minneapolis College of Art and Design

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. After hearing two unfiltered “Starter Stories,” our hosts will guide a thoughtful conversation with the founders before opening the floor to audience questions.

Where

Auditorium 150, MCAD

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.

Where

Classroom 230, MCAD

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.

Where

Auditorium 140, MCAD

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.

Where

College Center, MCAD

This session is confirmed for the official week. Full details are still coming together. Check back as the schedule fills in.

Where

Auditorium 150, MCAD

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?

Where

Auditorium 140, MCAD

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.

Where

Minneapolis College of Art and Design

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

Where

Auditorium 140, MCAD

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.

Where

Auditorium 150, MCAD

Who it’s for

Founders and students

Your deck is done and you are dressed for the occasion. Now prepare your voice, your body, and your authentic self. Quick, accessible theatrical techniques for managing nerves, strengthening presence, connecting with an audience, and landing a pitch with confidence.

Where

College Center, MCAD

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.

Where

MCAD, Auditorium 150

This session is confirmed for the official week. Full details are still coming together. Check back as the schedule fills in.

Where

Classroom 201, MCAD

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. 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.

Where

Auditorium 140, MCAD

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?

Where

Classroom 119, MCAD

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 moves beyond go-to-market theory and helps attendees leave with a 30-day action plan they can actually put to work.

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.

Where

Classroom 119, MCAD

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.

Where

Gallery, 1st floor, Minneapolis College of Art and Design

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.

Where

Auditorium 140, MCAD

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.

Where

Auditorium 150, MCAD

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.

Where

Classroom 119, MCAD

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.

Where

Classroom 119, Minneapolis College of Art and Design

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.

Where

Auditorium 150, MCAD

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.

Where

Auditorium 140, MCAD

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.

Where

College Center, MCAD

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.

Where

Luna & The Bear, 18 W 26th St, Minneapolis, MN 55404

Connect with the people investing in and supporting Minnesota’s startup ecosystem. Gopher Angels, J.P. Morgan, Avisen Legal, Great North Ventures, Capita3, and Idea Fund come together for a casual happy hour where founders and investors can meet outside the pitch room. Grab a drink, make a few new connections, and get to know the people helping fund and grow companies across the region.

Where

JBD Hall, Macalester College

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 to start thinking about your number, the tax implications, what you can do to optimize what you ultimately keep, and what a sale could mean for intergenerational planning, philanthropy, and the next chapter.

Where

Classroom OLRI 150, Macalester College

Who it’s for

Investors and founders

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.

Where

JBD Hall, Macalester College

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.

Where

Classroom OLRI 100, Macalester College

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?

Where

Classroom OLRI 150, Macalester College

Who it’s for

Investors

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.

Where

JBD Hall, Macalester College

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.

Where

Classroom OLRI 100, Macalester College

Many founders pour energy into building the product, then wonder why no one's buying. Revenue usually gets stuck in one of two places: before anyone enters your funnel, or somewhere inside it. Most founders can't tell which. In this session, Meredith Clause (Storycore Storytelling Consulting) and Jenna Redfield (Red Thread Studio) break down both, and how to diagnose which one is costing you. Meredith tackles the positioning problem: why your "About Us" page, your homepage headline, and your first meeting all sound like everyone else's, and how to reframe your story around the buyer's world, not yours. Jenna tackles the conversion problem: how attention actually becomes a customer, using her CLIMB framework, a five-step funnel from first impression to repeat buyer. Walk away with a sharper story and a clearer path from stranger to sale.

Where

Outside the JBD Hall, Macalester College

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.

Where

Classroom OLRI 150, Macalester College

Who it’s for

Founders, investors, and students

Join us in the Investor Arena to watch top early-stage founders pitch their startups to investors from Gopher Angels, Capita3, Bread & Butter Ventures, Mairs & Power Venture Capital, and Idea Fund.

Where

Classroom OLRI 100, Macalester College

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.

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.

Where

Classroom OLRI 150, Macalester College

Who it’s for

Founders

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

Where

Classroom OLRI 100, Macalester College

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.

Where

Classroom OLRI 100, Macalester College

Who it’s for

Investors and founders

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's working, what's overhyped, and what founders and investors in the room should be watching.

Where

Macalester, Mairs Concert Hall

Who it’s for

Investors and students

Twin Cities Business brings venture capital leaders, corporate executives, and the founders building tomorrow's companies into one room to ask why Minnesota keeps losing ground on job growth and capital to smaller markets, and how to unlock $1 billion in new startup capital.

Where

The Loft at Skyway Theatre, 4th floor

Who it’s for

Everyone

We’ll have The Loft at Skyway Theatre all to ourselves for a late-night happy hour with good music, loungey vibes, small bites, drinks, and plenty of space to hang out and meet people. The Loft sits on the fourth floor of Skyway Theatre, with multiple bars, lounge seating, a rooftop patio, and views of downtown Minneapolis. Come for a drink, stay for the music, and enjoy a decidedly less conference-y way to wrap up the day.

Where

Jerome Hill Theater, Great Northern Building

Who it’s for

Everyone

This session is confirmed for the official week. Full details are still coming together. Check back as the schedule fills in.

Where

Wellworth Coworking Space

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.

Where

Jerome Hill Theater, Great Northern Building

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.