Tonight marks the first meeting of the Loyola Venture Community (join here). LVC is a community of Loyola students, alumni, and staff that are interested in entrepreneurship. You don’t need to work at a startup to join. You can be a startup accountant, lawyer, or investor. You can be someone who has worked at Big Corporate for years and just wants to explore what’s happening in the startup space. To become a community member, the only pre-requisite is that somehow you have ties to a Loyola school.
LVC’s goal is to facilitate communication, provide resources to its members, and build community. Does that sound familiar? I borrowed the idea and model from Mark Peter Davis of Columbia Venture Community after interviewing him in early 2012.
I feel there is a clear need for LVC. There was no easy way for me to identify the proper people and resources who could assist me from the Loyola network. I relied on my personal networking skills to surface them on my own. It was effective, but it shouldn’t be that difficult. The alumni board has startup focused events. They’re great, but they aren’t consistent enough. I even wrote about them here on my blog. The school is working on startup initiatives but they don’t yet have a community that can connect all the different constituents. At this point I should note: LVC is unaffiliated with any specific Loyola university.
I’m not aiming to duplicate anyone else’s efforts. There are two components, digital and in-real-life. Digital first. You need to identify PR people, lawyers, investors, industry contacts? All the information is there for our members in the Group Directory. Similarly, you want to fill or find an internship, locate a mentor, hire a full-time marketer, run a crowdfunding campaign, gain access to a specific event, develop social media strategy, or simply browse or share relevant books and articles? Utilize our Google Group to broadcast to all members. It’s our listserv. It’s where the online conversation happens.
Now for the in-person side. Tonight is the first meeting, 6:30 at Pop Pub (University Ave between 11th and 12th St). All subsequent meetings will be the 3rd Wednesday of each month. Check it out on the calendar. Tonight’s agenda is simple. Informal networking. Crowd introductions. 2-person foosball tournament. Crowd introductions are comprised of everyone introducing themselves, explaining whatever projects they’re working on, and stating explicitly what help and resources they need and what help or resources they can provide. This point is to cut through the BS and get to the core of what people really need. This is the real meat of the offering, the value I want LVC to bring. And for the foosball tournament, pick a partner you haven’t met before. Get to know each other.
The events are New York-based. I’m here, so I’m biased. We have constituents outside New York. My hope is that we can connect everyone digitally until perhaps something develops in other locales. And of course, I hope to have people at the schools get more involved as well, whether it’s through guest speaking opportunities or workshops on campus.
I’ve illustrated why I believe there’s a need. I’ve described my approach. This is my minimum viable product. I don’t know what direction this group will go. I’ll listen to what the crowd likes and doesn’t like and move from there. And so you know, here’s the hypothesis I’m operating from:
My colleagues from Patriot or Ivy League schools have an incredible network to tap into on demand for resources and introductions. The Loyola schools have a large network of successful students, alumni, and staff. I posit that a major difference between Loyola and these more touted schools is the ability for these people to easily connect on their own. I believe our people, if presented the opportunity, would gladly match their efforts and collectively pull ourselves forward.
Anyways, that’s just what I think. Let’s see if the market agrees.
