A Milwaukee startup founder that’s helping businesses create and distribute influencer marketing is in the latest cohort of a year-long Chicago accelerator aimed at mentoring young entrepreneurs.
Urban Misfit Ventures’ co-founder and CEO Quentin Allums is in the fifth cohort of Future Founders, which started this month. The organization, founded in 2011 and based out of Chicago startup incubator 1871, offers budding entrepreneurs mentoring, retreats, a peer community and volunteer opportunities.
Allums, who was also named one of Wisconsin Inno’s 25 Under 25, said he applied for Future Founders because he wants to become a better entrepreneur and leader.
“We’ve worked on really cool projects, but there’s also a lot of areas that I just don’t feel comfortable in,” he said. “So far, Future Founders has been a lot of assessing where we are, what our strengths are as a leader and where we want to go.”
Urban Misfit Ventures, founded in September, operates two branches—a storytelling business and an events-based one.
As social media influencing becomes a larger part of how businesses reach their audiences, finding creative and effective methods is becoming more important, and Urban Misfit Ventures helps them identify those strategies.
Called IEEG, the company’s storytelling business helps clients create influencer marketing content and allows them to leverage IEEG’s organic reach of more than 3 million monthly views. IEEG captures their client’s vision by executing all the cinematography, Allums said.
“The brands come to us and we help them tell stories through video,” he said.
Some of their clients include the Milwaukee Admirals, the town’s ice hockey team, and Epidemic Sound, a Swedish music streaming company.
The company's events component, MKEMisfits, is slated to host at least one event per month in the first half of 2019, which mainly include panels with their clients, Allums said.
Allums got into the business of influencer marketing by being a social media influencer himself. His career started on LinkedIn, where he was using the platform's video storytelling feature to post content on entrepreneurship, personal branding, community building and other topics. He became one of the top LinkedIn video creators, with his posts amassing more than 1 million views.
Urban Misfit Ventures, which currently employs 14 people, has taken no investments and is completely bootstrapped. Allums said the startup made about $100,000 in its first four months.
Allums joins 17 other entrepreneurs in this year’s Future Founders cohort. The fellows come from all over the country, but Allums is the only entrepreneur from Wisconsin.
“I want to have fun and do it with people that are really enjoying what they’re doing as well,” Allums said.
Future Founders’ first three cohorts generated $9.1 million in revenue, secured $3.3 million in venture capital and created 234 jobs, according to the organization’s President and CEO Scott Issen.
