Innoblues Entrepreneurship Resource Database (Penn State)

Contents
Universal Resources .................................................................................................................................... 2 Resources ...................................................................................................................................................... 2 Learn To Code ............................................................................................................................................... 5 Startup Tools ................................................................................................................................................. 7 Some of Innoblues favorite startup tools: ............................................................................................... 7 Penn State Resources ................................................................................................................................ 10 Organizations .............................................................................................................................................. 10 Entrepreneurial Events ............................................................................................................................... 12 Courses........................................................................................................................................................ 13 Funding ....................................................................................................................................................... 14 PSU Startups................................................................................................................................................ 17

Universal Resources Resources

One of the best ways to learn rapidly is to imitate successful entrepreneurs and study the mentalities and strategies of those experts. Innoblue compiled a list of resources (startup news sources, websites, and blogs) that contains highly valuable reading material for any entrepreneur. This resource list also provides links to Penn State Linkedin networks that are connected to startups, which creates opportunities for the community to connect.

Linkedin Groups to Connect With Penn State Small Business Owners & Executives PSU Startup Community OnStartups The Community for Entrepreneurs Learning Resources http://steveblank.com/tools-and-blogs-for-entrepreneurs/ - Lots of tools and blogs recommended and made available for entrepreneurs. This is gold. Absolute must read material for entrepreneurs. Startup News Sources http://news.ycombinator.com/ - Hacker news http://startups.alltop.com/ - News and headlines about startups from across the web http://venturebeat.com/ - News about tech, money and innovation http://techcrunch.com - Group-edited blog about technology start-ups, particularly the Web 2.0 sector Websites Worth Exploring http://venturehacks.com/ - Good advice for startups http://startuplawyer.com/ - The Startup Lawyer is a website for entrepreneurs and startups about the legal aspects of the startup process, including incorporation, stock options, seed & venture financings, and exit transactions. http://www.inc.com/start-up - Small business information and entrepreneurial resource http://under30ceo.com/ - Entrepreneur interviews, advice, and webinars http://ecorner.stanford.edu/ - Over 2000 free videos and podcasts on entrepreneurship and innovation provided by Stanford Universitys Entrepreneurship Corner. http://www.socrated.com/courses/226 - 2 hour video on lean startups and how to build a startup http://olympus.cs.cmu.edu/entrepreneurial/ - Articles and information about entrepreneurship,

intellectual property, founder's equity, compensation, legal, open source agreements, and pitching. http://www.uofentrepreneurship.com/tencharacteristics.html - Entrepreneur articles on business plans, valuations, marketing, financial metrics, labor laws, and sales http://www.college-startup.com/ - Startup blog archive searchable by year and category http://www.entrepreneurship.org/en/Resource-Center.aspx - Large resource center http://www.entrepreneurship.gov/ResourcesCenter/ - Another huge resource center with tons of articles http://www.quickmba.com/entre/ - Tips for success with items such as business plans, attracting stakeholders, and dealing with the press http://www.dnaofanentrepreneur.com/ - Interesting insight on what makes an entrepreneur http://www.zeromillion.com/ - Claims to be the top entrepreneurship resource online with lots of links and articles http://startupdigest.com - Free weekly email to help you meet people and learn more in the tech startup world http://www.backpocketcoo.com/ - Free blog and tips on entrepreneurship
http://www.donniebarnes.com/ http://designfor15bucks.com/ http://www.gabrielweinberg.com/

Useful blogs and links for startups

Angel List for entrepreneurs

Venture Hacks Angel List raise money with angel investors

Best of Y-Combinator Startup Advice

Best of Y- Combinator Startup Advice

Raising Venture Capital

Mark Suster GRP Partners Advice VC Experts Seed Stage Valuation Guide

Founder Equity Issues

Fred Wilson Advice and spreadsheet Venture Hacks equity section

Incubator List/ Local Startup Resources/ Startup Q&A

List of Startup Incubators Startup Resources The Startup Digest Startup Questions and Answers Uber list of Startup Resources Legal, Equity, etc. Bottom Line Law Group

Must Read Blogs

Top VC Blog List Fred Wilson A VC Marc Andreessen Paul Graham Hacker News Brad Feld Chris Dixon OnStartups-Dharmesh Shah Both Sides of the Table Mark Suster 37signals Eric Ries Startup Lessons Learned Venture Hacks and http://twitter.com/venturehacks Andrew Chen Dave McClure Venture Made Transparent

Executive / Advisory Board Compensation

Comp Study Executive Compensation Website unbelievably useful Expert CEO Compensation page also incredibly useful SaaS Sales Team Compensation Philippe Botteri, Bessemer Venture Partners VentureHacks on Startup Advisory Boards great basics

Boilerplate Venture Funding Documents

Y Combinator Series AA Equity Financing Documents Founders Institute Plain Preferred Term Sheet WSGR Series Seed Documents Fenwick & West Seed Investment Standard Forms TechStars Model Seed Funding Documents Cooley Godward WSGR Term Sheet Generator

Lawyers/Legal

Walker Law: Tips for Entrepreneurs Intellectual Property Law For Startups Blog Yoichiro Yokum Taku Startup Company Lawyer Law & Disorder: ARS Technica Legal Blog Likelihood of Confusion-trademark, copyright and Internet Law

Technology & Marketing Law Blog American Bar Association Best Legal Blogs

Manufacturing Resources

Alibaba.com GlobalSources.com Sourcing in China Sourcing Blog Smart China Sourcing

More to read Brad Feld and Jason Mendelson Ask the VC http://askthevc.com Dharmesh Shah On startups http://onstartups.com Josh Kopelman Redeye VC http://redeye.firstround.com David Hornik VentureBlog http://ventureblog.com

Should be posting more often Bill Burnham Burnhams Beat http://tinyurl.com/4jb4mt David Cowan Who Has Time For This? http://whohastimeforthis.com Steve Barsh Barsh Bits http://blog.stevebarsh.com

Presentations: http://techcrunch.com/2008/08/09/how-to-demo-your-startup/ http://techcrunch.com/2008/09/01/how-to-demo-your-startup-part-two/ http://techcrunch.com/2009/12/13/how-to-pitch-vc/ What Should I Send Investors? If I launched a Startup 5 Second Guide to choosing your Startups Legal Entity

http://blog.800ceoread.com/2011/03/29/built-to-sell/

Learn To Code
If you are interested in the world of tech startups, it is extremely beneficial to understand web development (aka coding or programming). If you cannot code, you're options are to find a technical co-founder (this is often hard), learn to code yourself (resources below), or hire an external team (also a challenge).

You may or may not become a web development expert, but learning to code will help you understand the building process and usually earn you more respect from developers than the guys who don't try to learn. Since Penn State is not unique in there being a much greater demand for developers than supply, we want to make sure you have the resources to learn to code, and encourage you to join many of our members in that endeavor.

Web Development Resources Lynda Tutorials (free for PSU students with user ID due to a Penn State license with Lynda) Video and tutorial based instruction on web development, video creation, most programming languages, and design (e.g. Photoshop, Dreamweaver, Joomla!, Sketchbook). For individuals with limited prior exposure to programming languages, the following sections are recommended specifically for web based ventures: Android, HTML, CSS, Dreamweaver, Ruby on Rails, jQuery, and WordPress. It is advised that student entrepreneurs start anywhere in the Developer section. W3Schools - Free tutorials in all web development technologies and a try-it-yourself editor that allows you to experiment with several languages. Codecademy - Free, easy, popular, fun and interactive way for aspiring programmers and web developers to learn coding javascript (good for beginners). CodeSchool - Learn by doing with interactive videos and in-browser coding. There is a free and a paid version. The free courses include Try Ruby and Rails for Zombies. OpenCourseWare from MIT - Free lecture notes, exams, and videos from MIT, including computer science and programming courses (no registration required) Land of Code - Free web development tutorials, examples, exercises, quizzes, reference, and more. Material is for beginners and non-beginners alike (no registration required). Web Monkey - Free computer programming tutorials, cheat sheets, color charts, and usable code templates (no registration required). Treehouse - Easy and interactive way to learn how to design and develop for the web and iOS Udacity - Free online university computer science classes for all level programmers with renowned professors as the instructors. Coursera - Free courses from top universities, such as Princeton, Stanford, Penn, and Michigan. Dream in Code - Programming and web development community that allows community based learning.

Google Code University - List of courses and innovative resources to help CS students, faculty, and instructors. Beginners should start with their introductions and tutorials. Mozillas School of Webcraft - Mozillas 100% free developer training site provides courses for all levels of experience. Learn Code the Hard Way - Books and courses to learn code.

Startup Tools
Innoblue provides a list of our favorite startup tools, which include categories like website creation, email, analytics, project management, and more Innoblue also offers links to more comprehensive lists, such as PBworks' categorized list of 470 startup tools. We recommend browsing the lists to stumble upon something valuable, or using ctrl+f to find something specific. Do yourself a favor by taking advantage of these tools, which can make your life much easier by saving you a ton of time.

Find PBworks' categorized list of 470 startup tools here and 9 other links they provide to sites with lists of startup tools here. Also, Steve Blank compiled a list of startup tool lists, which is reproduced here: HBS Startup Tribe Tools List NYU Startup Resources Library PBworks startup tools List Startup Weekend tools list Y Combinator Startup Library Startup Foundry tools list Small Business tools list Market research list

Some of Innoblues favorite startup tools:

Website Creation Weebly - Create a free website or blog using an easy, drag & drop interface that requires no previous web development experience Wordpress - Blog tool, publishing platform, and CMS Froms Wufoo - Online form builder that we use for applicants Google Docs - Real-time editing for group work

File sharing & storing Dropbox - Virtual hardrive that stores and syncs files Evernote - Capture anything and store it in the cloud Video Vimeo - Easy video sharing Presentation tools Prezi - Cloud based presentation software and sweet alternative to powerpoint Email Google Apps - Create an email account that connects to your domain (i.e. name@innoblue.org). MailChimp - Easy email newsletter creating platform that allows you to keep email lists, design email newsletters, share them on social networks, integrate with services you already use, and track your results iContact - Email marketing and social media marketing software Technical Contractor Management Odesk - Find talent to hire (i.e. contractors) from all around the world Elance - Find talent to hire (i.e. contractors) from all around the world Guru - Hire freelancers and manage projects online Private Beta Launchrock - Set up a launching soon page before releasing your product Project Management BaseCamp - project management and collaboration tool that includes to-dos, messages, schedules, and milestones Trello - Collaboration tool that organizes your projects into boards so that you can see whats being worked on, whos working on what, and where something is in a process. Pivotal Tracker - Simple, effective, agile project management tool Time Management Software Wunderlist - Free and easy task management tool for iPhone, iPod, iPad, Mac, Windows, Android, and your browser Mockups & Wireframes Balsamiq - Quickly create and iterate mockups and wireframes to enable better communication with designers, developers, and product managers Funding Kickstarter - Worlds largest funding platform for creative projects Angel.co - An online community that enables quicker search and find between the startups and investors

Financial Management/Accounting/Taxes/Payroll Wave Accounting - Free online accounting for small businesses that syncs to the bank account and makes accounting super easy InDinero - Money management system that tracks a businesss finances Telephone Twilio - Provides infrastructure APIs for businesses to build scalable, reliable voice and text messaging apps Skype - Video and audio calling that works well for one-to-one calls (free skype-to-skype, charge skype-to-phone, international rates apply) Google Hangout - Video communication that works well for groups (requires google+ account) Free Conference Call - Free phone teleconferencing that allows you to record conversations Servers/VPS/Hosting Heoku - Cloud application platform that supports Ruby, Java, Python, Scala, Clojure, and Node.js Linode - Xen VPS hosting company Bugs & Issue tracking FogBugz - Easy bug tracking system Analytics Crazy Egg - Click tracking, website heatmaps, and usability software KISSmetrics - Event tracking, A/B testing, and conversion funnel software Google Analytics and Yahoo Analytics - Web analytics and reporting (free) Optimizely - Optimize your conversion rate in minutes by running an AB test, split test, or through multivariate testing Facebook Insights and Twitalyzer - allow you to track impact, engagement and influence on facebook and twitter (both free) Subscription Payments/Management/Billing Stripe - Makes it easy for developers to accept credit cards on the web Managing APIs Mashery Worlds most powerful, most popular API management solution Web Frameworks Drupal - Open source content management system Google Web Toolkit - Development toolkit for building and optimizing complex browser-based applications Ruby on Rails - Open-source web framework thats optimized for programmer happiness and sustainable productivity Dashboards Geckoboard - Real-time business status board that offers web analytics, CRM, support, infrastructure, project management, and sales all in one place

Databases MySQL - Worlds most popular open source database Collaboration Platform PBworks - Capture knowledge, share files, and manage projects within a secure, reliable environment Feedback SurveyMonkey - Free online survey software & questionnaire tool Code Hosting and Version Control Codebase - Git hosting, mercurial hosting, and subversion hosting with complete project management Github - Social coding that includes source-code browser, in-line editing, wikis, and ticketing Social Media Tracking/Marketing HootSuite - Social media management dashboard Browser Compatibility/Cross-Browser Testing Firebug - Allows inspect, edit and monitor CSS, HTML, JavaScript and Net requests in any web page Cloud Infrastructure Engine Yard - Cloud platform for Ruby on Rails and PHP Google App Engine - Offers users the ability to build and host web applications on Googles infrastructure

Penn State Resources Organizations

Innoblue is just one of the many student, university, or community organizations that exist to support entrepreneurs at Penn State and in the surrounding area. These organizations each provide a unique value for entrepreneurs, ranging from community, training, and mentorship, to facilities, tools, and funding. See an extensive list of entrepreneurial organizations in the Penn State area here.

Penn State Entrepreneurship Organizations Student Organizations

Innoblue - Interdisciplinary entrepreneurship group that serves as an early-stage business accelerator for students by connecting them to people and resources. Nittany Entrepreneurs - Penn State student organization, partnered with the CBICC, which links students with regional business leaders and successful entrepreneurs. Happy Valley Communications - Penn State student-run public relations firm that exists to offer professional public relations services to the community of Penn State.

University Organizations

Lion Launch Pad - Business accelerator program for Penn State undergraduate students and student teams. The Learning Factory - Brings the real-world into the classroom by providing engineering students with practical hands-on experience through industry-sponsored capstone design projects. Farrell Center for Corporate Innovation and Entrepreneurship - Focuses on creation and management of educational programs in corporate innovation and entrepreneurship, research, and outreach. Humanitarian and Social Entrepreneurship (HESE) - Focuses on creation and management of educational programs in corporate innovation and entrepreneurship, research, and outreach. Center for Engineering Design and Entrepreneurship (CEDE) - For faculty and students in engineering and business colleges in partnership with industry to design, construct, and test solutions to engineering problems. Ag Entrepreneurship - To inform Ag entrepreneurs about marketing, economics, and news in the Ag industry. Help others make an impact on the agriculture and improve ag systems world-wide.

Community Organizations

Small Business Development Center - Offers free, confidential consulting services to entrepreneurs looking to start or grow a small business by providing them with the education, information, and tools necessary to build successful businesses. Ben Franklin Technology Partners in Central Pennsylvania - Provides early stage/technology funding and business support services to emerging tech-based startups and existing manufacturers in a 32-county footprint. Innovation Park - Innovation Park at Penn State is a 118-acre business park that provides companies with multiple real estate options. Residents of the Park have access to Penn State resources and the support services to transfer knowledge from the University to the marketplace. New Leaf Initiative - A nonprofit organization that provides the first step for people to make positive radical change in the world. We believe that all of us play an important role in transitioning our society towards a sustainable future. To bring about this necessary change, we act as an integrator of ideas, challenges, resources, people and sustainability strategy. Centre Region Entrepreneur Network (create a Meetup account) - An organization dedicated to fostering relationships among local entrepreneurs. We recognize the value of

a strong business community to our individual endeavors and are committed to sharing our experiences for the benefit of our peers. Email Joan Potter at Joan@videoncentral.com to inquire about joining. State College Ruby Group (create Meetup account) - Free monthly instructional workshops on the Ruby and Ruby on Rails programming language. Also, join the State College Ruby Google Group.

Entrepreneurial Events
Many of the entrepreneurial organizations in the Penn State area host speaker events, training sessions, and networking events. Innoblue attempts to maintain a comprehensive list of these events through use of a publicly viewable google calendar. If you have a google account, you can actually have these events automatically pulled into your calendar by using the "Add Us" feature on our events page. If you know of entrepreneurial events that are not listed, please contact us with the event information so that we can include them.

Major events and competitions HackPSU- Hack PSU will be held Saturday Nov 10th through Sunday Nov 11th 2012 in conjunction with Global Entrepreneurship Week. This event is organized by Innoblue and sponsored by the Smeal College of Business, Microsoft, GE, and Team TreeHouse.It is a 24 hour hackathon at Penn State that gives students the chance to collaborate on building something awesome. (This event is free) Whether you have a background in programming, designing or marketing, this is the perfect opportunity to form a team around an idea, build a prototype, and present it to judges at the end of the 24 hours. Idea Pitch Competition - A competition (open to all students) to work together and learn how to effectively formulate, communicate, and create innovative ideas into real opportunities. Hosted by PSUs Farrell Center and the Smeal College of Business. Ag Business Springboard - Ag Business Springboard is a business plan presentation competition open to all students at Penn State, with a significant cash prize for the winning team ($5,000) Nittany Lion Entrepreneurship Conference - A conference on "Corporate Innovation and Venture Capital", hosted by Penn State's Smeal College of Business Global Entrepreneurship Week at Penn State - A week of events directed at helping students and community members expand their entrepreneurial skills and become familiar with the resources available to them here at Penn State.

PSU Hackathon - A 24-hour software development competition that unites the local community of developers, designers and engineers with peers and alumni through the creation and presentation of innovative products in an entrepreneurial environment.

Courses
Many courses offered at Penn State are highly applicable for students' current or future entrepreneurial endeavors. Innoblue tries to maintain an updated list of entrepreneurship-related courses at Penn State. If you know of entrepreneurship-related courses that are not listed, please contact us with the course information so that we can include them. Also, plans are currently in development for the launch of a university-wide entrepreneurship minor program in 2013, designed to expand upon the current engineering entrepreneurship minor.

Penn State Academic Entrepreneurship Offerings

Engineering Entrepreneurship Minor Engineering Leadership Development Minor Humanitarian Engineering and Social Entrepreneurship Farrell Center for Corporate Innovation and Entrepreneurship Ag Entrepreneurship

Courses (Use Penn States University Bulletin for specific searches)

ENGR 297F & MGMT 297F - Entrepreneurship Mindset ENGR 425 & IST 425 & MGMT 425 - New Venture Creation ENGR 426 & IST 426 & MGMT 426 - Invention Commercialization ENGR 312 - Sustainable Energy Entrepreneurship ENGR 407 - Technology-Based Entrepreneurship ENGR 411 - Entrepreneurship Business Basics ENTR 497 - Special Topics in Entrepreneurship ENGR 497A - Engineering Entrepreneurship Capstone ENGR 497D - International Leadership of Enterprise and Development Practicum ENGR 497K - Social Entrepreneurship ENTR 497A - E-Recycling and Product Design in Kenya ENTR 497B - Sheetz Fellows Program ENTR 300 - Principles of Entrepreneurship ENTR 320 - Entrepreneurship and New Venture Creation ENTR 400 - Financing Entrepreneurial Ventures ENTR 410 - Entrepreneurial Marketing

ENTR 420 - Leadership and Growth of New Ventures ENTR 430 - Entrepreneurship and New Product Development ENTR 440 - Entrepreneurship and Franchising ENTR 496 - Independent Studies in Entrepreneurship IST 297D - Introduction to Application Development IST 440W - Integration and Problem Solving MGMT 431 - Entrepreneurship and Small Business Management MGMT 397A - Social Entrepreneurship MGMT 497A - Social Entrepreneurship FIN 301H - Corporation Finance ARCH 497A - Design Entrepreneurship ART 101 - Introduction to Web Design ART 203 - The Art of Web Design COMM 487 - Management and Leadership COMM 493 - Entrepreneurship in the Information Age: Senior Seminar ECON 446W - Economics of Industry Evolution HRIM 497F - Entrepreneurship in the Hospitality Industry ENTR 500 - Innovation and Entrepreneurship ENTR 503 - Garber Venture Capital Practicum ENTR 504 - Essentials of Business Planning Independent studies work with a professor to arrange your own proposed course related to entrepreneurship **For full list of courses, see http://bulletins.psu.edu/bulletins/bluebook/. Use http://schedule.psu.edu to see times and locations of courses offerings. Is the class full? Never give up, never surrender! Visit the department in person or email the course professor to plead your case.

Funding
Investment capital in the Penn State area can be hard to find since State College is far away from any major city and thus lacks angel investment groups or active venture capitalists. But like any true entrepreneur, if you are passionate about your idea and confident in your ability to execute, you should not be intimidated by challenging circumstances, such as a low availability of funding. Instead of giving up, you can bootstrap as much as possible and try your hand at the local funding options. Innoblue co-founder, Jon Tornetta, compiled a list of potential funding options at Penn State and in the State College area, which can serve as a guideline for you if you choose to seek investment locally.

The size of the potential funding increases as you move down the page

Sparkplug ($500)

The SparkPlug aims to advance entrepreneurship by helping student entrepreneurs launch a crowdsourcing campaign with their new product or venture. SparkPlug achieves this vision by offering selected ventures grants of $500. Action Steps A Penn State student entrepreneur must only submit a brief application of his or her idea. Since only an idea is required for this application, it is technically an early stage resource.
Lion Launch Pad ($500 grant; $1,000 1% equity investments; loans)

Lion Launch Pad was an effort that emerged from Robert Shedds 2007 honors thesis on developing entrepreneurship through business incubators. Liz Kisenwether can be attributed to launching the physical space and implementing Robert Shedds vision. Lion Launch Pad (LLP) can be best utilized by student entrepreneurs for its mentors and early funding assistance. Action Steps Student entrepreneurs must apply online and prepare a brief eight slide pitch deck on Title, Market, Product, Customers, Business Model, Team, Financial Overview, and Exit Strategy. Email e-ship@psu.edu or visit 123 Keller Building for more information.
IdeaPitch ($500-$2,000)

IdeaPitch is a business plan competition that occurs at the beginning of the spring semester every year. Judging criteria are available here. Action Steps Student(s) must form a team by the end of January and prepare a brief eight slide pitch deck on Title, Market, Product, Customers, Business Model, Team, Financial Overview, and Exit Strategy to be submitted online and presented upon.
Crowdsourcing ($5,000-$100,000)

Crowdsourcing is becoming an increasingly popular investment vehicle for early stage ventures. Currently pending legislation will make this avenue even more viable more start-ups in the future. Action Steps

Visit any one of the following crowdsourcing platform and apply by following their submission criteria. From Dowser.org:

Spot.us is a funding platform for citizen journalism. Reporters keep 90 percent of the revenue; the rest goes to site editors. 33needs is a web application that connects investors to small-scale entrepreneurs around the world. The investor receives 3% and 33needs receives 5% of the funding target for a project. Profounder aims to help entrepreneurs get a community to invest in their project, creating a support base in addition to bringing in money. Kickstarter targets artists and entrepreneurs who need funding to bring their creative projects to life. Its use of video as a means of sharing projects makes it particularly fun and simple. A project cannot begin, and no credit cards are charged, until enough pledges have been made to reach the funding target, so as to discourage poorly executed projects. IndieGoGo caters to artists and creative entrepreneurs. An individual can close a project before full funding, but the transaction fees also go up from 4% to 9%. Users can offer unique perks or tax deductions to contributors in lieu of offering profit, but always keep 100% ownership. Firstgiving helps organizations plan, execute, and measure successful online fundraising campaigns and events. With 8,000 organizations and 13 million online donors participating, and $1 billion raised online, Firstgivings services appear widereaching.

The Garber Fund ($100,000-$300,000)

The Garber Fund of the Farrel Center of the Smeal College of Business claims to be the nations largest and most active student-centric venture fund. Consisting of a $5 million portfolio, the Garber Fund focuses on technology-based companies. Action Steps Visit 451 Business Building or call 814-865-4593 and ask to set up a meeting with someone to present your executive summary. Preferably, students should first visit Innoblue or the Lion Launch Pad to obtain an easier introduction.
Ben Franklin of Centre County ($100,000+)

Ben Franklin of Centre County represents one office in a chain of Pennsylvania, government funded investors. In addition to generating some financial return, they aim to promote economic growth. Investment for for-profit entities through Ben Franklin is more likely if a student entrepreneur is able to 1) indicate a substantial number of jobs created in Centre County as a direct result of the venture and 2) generate profit, as with all investors. Action Steps Learn more before contacting the group to give an elevator pitch and request a meeting at info@cnp.benfranklin.org or 814.863.4558.

BlueTree Capital Angel Investors ($200,000-$2,000,000)

BlueTree has been very committed to seeing Centre County entrepreneurship flourish and is eager to invest in Penn State ventures. The group has given numerous presentations on how to pitch for investment as well as an overview of venture capital and angel investment. The group seems most interested in the large collection of intellectual property that mostly unused by Penn State professors and graduate students due to past Penn State policies on intellectual property. For this reason, graduate student entrepreneurs may be more likely to receive funding from this group. Action Steps Submit the ventures executive summary and fill in required contact information. Additionally, contact Innoblue or Nittany Entrepreneurs for an easier introduction to the group.
Life Sciences Greenhouse of Central PA ($250,000-$1,000,000)

LSGPA invests in scientific disciplines that have some associated (e.g. technology platforms) with human life and health. Included are many branches of biology and chemistry as well as some areas of genetics, physics and materials science. Their funds principally originate from a Pennsylvania tobacco settlement in 2002. A minimum of 1:1 matching requirement is met from non-state related investment sources (typically founders, angel investors, or venture capital firms). Additionally, the invested companies must have a strong presence in central PA. Action Steps Visit http://www.lsgpa.com/the-funding-process/ if the above criteria are met and apply.

PSU Startups
Though we may not hear about their stories as frequently as large corporations, Penn State does actually have a strong track record of alumni entrepreneurs. Innoblue provides a brief snapshot of some of the startup companies that are rooted with Penn State blood. If you have suggestions of companies to add to our list, please contact us so we can include that information.

Alum:

Weebly Sincerely Xobni Mulu Hoppio Careerbliss Candid Career Spyder Rentals Appek Teachstreet (Acquired by AmazonLocal) Solise VPV Interactive Buzby Networks Friends of the Web Current Hip Hop TrolleyPub Diamond Age Games Speed Country Blistt Lionmenus LocalUp Solutions BetDash Sushi Tokyo Swallow Hollow