Startups @ City Club is a new collaborative effort between the City Club of Cleveland  and the Cleveland Startup Collective to bring the startup community together in educational, social and thought-provoking environments.

The first event was launched at Cleveland Entrepreneurial Week in November, with speakers on technology, product development, investing and the overall startup community in Cleveland. “The main goal of the entrepreneurial speaker series is to install the values of lean startup methodology, the entrepreneurial-driven startup community and mentor-driven startup development,” says Morris Wheeler, organizer and founder of Drummond Road Capital. 

Speakers included Chris Heivly, founder of MapQuest, venture partner and founder of TechPint Paul Singh and Alexis Giles, vice president of business development at MOX.

The Cleveland Startup Collective is a grass roots organization focused on lean startup methodology – launching a new product to market in as little as 10 to 12 weeks with as little capital as possible. “Life’s too short to build a product no one wants,’ says Wheeler. “A number of us over the past two or three years believe that at its core, startups and startup investing need to revolve around the entrepreneur. ”

Wheeler says entrepreneurs in cities like New York, Boston and San Francisco get together on Friday nights, drink beer and discuss issues around their businesses. While casual meetings are starting to take off in Cleveland, Wheeler says the city needs more.

“All of the other organizations like JumpStart are important to entrepreneurial success, but in our view we need to be meeting the needs of the startup community, not defining the needs of the community.”

Startups @ City Club plans to host four to six events a year, some of which will be partnered with other events like TechPint. “The idea is to have many different activities,” says Wheeler. “We’ll have dialogs, educational events, pitch events and social events.”

Source: Morris Wheeler
Writer: Karin Connelly