At this week’s Speaker Series at the University of Pittsburgh’s student accelerator, The Blast Furnace was one of the most important subjects a startup faces: what lies beyond the ‘idea,’ past ‘customer discovery’ – going to market. One of the biggest mistakes an entrepreneur can make is underestimating their go-to-market costs, or assuming the ‘product will sell itself.’ Unfortunately for most businesses, the ‘build it and they will come’ is not reality.
Last week, our Blast Furnace teams heard from three experts on funding early stage companies. The Blast Furnace is the University of Pittsburgh’s student accelerator, which recently launched its inaugural cohort. Two speakers from the 3x3 are funders, the third one is a serial entrepreneur who has been funded by the two funders (amongst others). They had great information and great advice.
When I showed up to listen to two terrific speakers at the University of Pittsburgh’s new student accelerator, Blast Furnace, I didn't realize I would learn about Eeyore and Tigger. Or that my ‘lawyer uncle’ actually could be helpful in some legal situations.
"I am Dani. I am from Spain. And I am a reasonably good lover." I thought that would get your attention. It also caught the attention of attendees of this week’s Blast Furnace, the student accelerator at the University of Pittsburgh. It was ‘Alumni Night’ at the Furnace. However the opinions expressed, and the experiences shared, were so much more. First up, Dani Garcia.
This week the University of Pittsburgh launched its new student accelerator dubbed The Blast Furnace (a tip of the hat to Pittsburgh’s steel making history) of which I am its director. A blast furnace, according to that great oracle of all knowledge(!), Wikipedia, is a “type of metallurgical furnace used for smelting to produce industrial metals, generally iron, but also others such as lead or copper. Smelting is a form of extractive metallurgy; its main use is to produce a base metal from its ore.”