RustBuilt Pittsburgh hosted its first inaugural RustBuilt Conference on Sept. 17 where hundreds of participants filled the halls and auditorium of the Kelly Strayhorn Theater in East Liberty to hear success stories from startup founders, network with investors and learn ways to take an idea and turn it into a business.
Speakers hosting different topical discussions throughout the all-day event included Niche Founder and CEO Luke Skurman, 412 Venture Fund Managing Director Ilana Diamond and Black Tech Nation Founder Kelauni Jasmyn, among more than a dozen others.
The response to the event seemed to, at least initially, catch its organizer and RustBuilt's head of platform, Kit Mueller, a bit off guard.
"I did not expect that," Mueller said. "The hope (now) is that we can shine a light on Pittsburgh as the apparent capital of the Rust Belt. I think that people are hungry to get back together, this is the only sort of startup conference happening in the region."
Overall, Mueller said the event logged more than 300 registrants and noted that some people came as far as Miami and Austin, Texas, and others who came from New York and Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
One participant who traveled to Pittsburgh for the event was Nasir Ali, a partner of a $40 million venture capital fund called StartFast Ventures based out of Rochester, New York. Ali said that Pittsburgh, like Rochester, has plenty of startup options for investment given its potential.
"We think there is an enormous amount of opportunity that is invisible to most VCs because 95% of VC dollars are still spent in the top 10 urban areas," Ali said. "We think that places like Pittsburgh are a gold mine."
Ali praised the innovation that is coming out of the region's universities but noted it takes more than just academic talent for a region to see a continuation of VC investment.
"The real opportunity here is, how do you get that innovation to thrive here and turn into businesses," Ali said. "That requires people who are not just willing to quit their jobs to start a business, it also means that they need to have networks that can bring to them the skillsets that are much easier to find in larger metro areas."
Ali said RustBuilt's conference is just one element that can accomplish this feat, but it also requires support from the community, the very type of support expressed by Pittsburgh Mayor William Peduto, who declared Sept. 17 RustBuilt day during a speech at the event.
"The progress that I have seen in Pittsburgh is incredibly inspiring, and I think it's setting the model for other Rust Velt cities," Ali said.
For Mueller, this year's conference and those that come after it are just a launching pad as it's up to the startups and the entrepreneurs who run them that will determine if a snowball-like acceleration in innovation will occur in the years to come.
"It's an instigation that they now have to do everything to make Pittsburgh realize that gap between where we are and where we could be," Mueller said.
