How Two Midwest VCs Have Mastered Success Through Multiple Tech Cycles
by Graeme Thickins For twin brothers Rob and Ryan Weber, founding partners of Great North Ventures in Minnesota, entrepreneurship began in college, just as the Internet was taking off in 1996. As computer science majors (and Rob later switching to entrepreneurial studies), they learned quickly that Internet traffic could be monetized. Over a few years, […]
How the University of Minnesota is Embracing Startup Culture
The University of Minnesota is embracing startup culture across disciplines and producing results in the number of founders, tech talent, and startups. One of the top universities in the country with enrollment regularly over 50k, a system-wide endowment of nearly $4B, and over $1B spent annually on research and development, it’s incredibly important for the […]
2020 Minnesota Entrepreneur Gift Buying Guide
Every year, when I begin holiday shopping for friends and family, I always start with a list of gift ideas sourced from local entrepreneurs in Minnesota and the surrounding region. One of the best ways to support your community is to become a customer from the entrepreneurs in your community. With the input of some […]
COVID-19 Resources for Startups, State-by-State
Welcome to our state directory for startups seeking COVID-19 resources! Last month we whittled the plethora of resources available down to the essentials here. We certainly weren’t the first to provide a guide, and we realized that with the proliferation of the same information over many sources, it would also be valuable to provide this […]
Founders Pledge: Support the Organizations that Support You
By Rob and Ryan Weber Where do startups come from, and how can we encourage more of them? Whether you believe in clustering or building a rainforest, one thing is for sure: startups don’t materialize out of nowhere, nor do they always succeed on their own. Importance of Startups A healthy local startup ecosystem drives […]
BETA Showcase, Greater MN, and Launch MN comes to St. Cloud
Twin Cities Startup Week is over! It was a busy week for many of us in the tech and innovation community, with around 300 events to attend and thousands of people to meet. This year, Great North Labs was proud to bring Greater Minnesota into the BETA Showcase for the first time ever. Thanks to […]
May: Innovation Ecosystems, SingularityU Kickoff, and PrintWithMe
The Innovation Ecosystem At Great North Labs, we work to cultivate the next generation of leading tech companies across the upper Midwest. As a venture fund, this means deploying capital, providing startup intelligence, and utilizing our network to support and grow early-stage tech startups. We also provide low-cost training through our Startup School, in areas that we […]
Minnesota Innovation Collaborative
The Minnesota Innovation Collaborative (MIC) is one of the most exciting items in this year’s budget. It is a program under the Department of Employment and Economic Development (DEED), led by former Google/YouTube exec and Silicon Valley boomerang, Commissioner Steve Grove. The program calls for $4.5M in 2020 and 2021 to grow the startup and […]
February: Improving the Culture for Entrepreneurship, 2ndKitchen, and the Prairie Capital Summit
Improving the Culture for Entrepreneurship Many efforts are underway to continue to improve the culture for entrepreneurship in Minnesota and other Midwest states, ranging from policy driven efforts to increase access to capital for startup founders to workforce development initiatives to ensure the right talent is interested and available in high growth startup jobs. On the government side, forexample, the governor’s just-released budget includes funding for the creation of the Minnesota Innovation Collaborative, which is designed to accelerate the growth of the innovation ecosystem. Theproposed budget […]