The UpRiver founder summit, hosted by Activation Capital and Venture Forum RVA, gathered the Richmond entrepreneurial community for its second annual event this week.
It kicked off Tuesday afternoon at the Washington Redskins Bon Secours Training Center, and included several panels of Richmond entrepreneurs along with speeches from other founders from across the country.
The speaker sessions and workshops focused on the needs of founders using data gathered from Richmond’s entrepreneurial community.
UpRiver's second day was led by BK Fulton, a serial entrepreneur and current executive producer at Soulidifly, which was the first independent film company to debut four feature-length films in its first year of business. He said influencers are a major part of his media industry savvy.
"We live in a celebrity culture, so when they say something, people flock to it, whether it’s good or not," he said. "You can be mad at them, or help them use that voice and platform to do something helpful or useful."
His main advice, though, for entrepreneurs, was to just do it: "Don’t let anybody put you in a box. You know what you can do, go do it."
That theme echoed true for Kevin Petrovic, who spoke on an M&A-focused panel about his startup experience. At age 20, he raised more than $20 million for his startup FlightCar before selling it to Mercedes-Benz.
Petrovic said his youth was crucial to his success, making him "just the right level of crazy to attempt something like this." But he controlled that ambition, making sure to gradually build connections with large automotive companies that were contemplating the same issues he was.
UpRiver’s keynote speaker was Eric Major, a James Madison University graduate and co-founder of K2M. He shared his medical device company’s journey from garage to IPO and selling it for $1.4 billion, saying that passion and persistence led him through.
"Do you find yourself thinking about it in the shower? Are you thinking about the product all the time?" he asked. "As an entrepreneur, it cannot be nine to five. You can't have balance as an entrepreneur."
Even with the hard work, Major said, growing a company is a winding, looping road, so having experienced lawyers, financiers, operators and others on your team is essential early on.
Blake Luse, director of Ferguson Ventures and panelist on a corporate venture panel, said building those teams requires corporate innovation and a healthy startup support ecosystem.
"Until corporate innovation brewed, we didn’t have a mechanism to add value in the entrepreneurial ecosystem in Virginia," Luse said. "Ferguson is looking to extend the (Virginia) name for recruiting purposes and economic development. Our three-year plan is about economic development, entrepreneurial ecosystems and founders, and how you create jobs."
At the event, Activation Capital also announced the launch of its online startup resource database, for which it's launching a beta version in coming weeks. UpRiver culminated with a networking-party-concert mashup with rvatech/jam, consisting of showcase event Techxpo and the Battle of the Tech Bands.
