LaunchMN, an initiative from the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development, and Kinetic, a Minneapolis-based networking startup, have teamed up to form a new initiative that connects founders, mentors, investors and corporate leaders to foster the state's entrepreneurial talent.
The Minnesota Exchange is a software platform that facilitates those connections with weekly introductions, office hours and coffee clubs over video.
Neela Mollgaard, executive director of LaunchMN said the partnership is the result of an effort to increase LaunchMN's connectivity to experts who help startups and entrepreneurs succeed, especially during a global pandemic. The Minnesota Exchange promises to make the state's startup community more successful by enabling various subject matter experts to connect across geographies, expertise level and business sectors, she said.
Kris Eul, co-founder and CEO of Kinetic, said the platform helps make 'who you know' in the startup community equitable, while simultaneously building deeper relationships than cold calling and blindly emailing. "What we see with the evolution of any venture are different needs at different times," Eul said. "That requires a variety of mentors and subject matter experts to help guide that transition from stage to stage."
Over 60% of Kinetic's approximately 1,000 members have over 10 years of experience in their industry. The Minnesota Exchange gives these corporate leaders who are willing to help an easy way to provide their expertise to early stage founders and companies.
Mollgaard said Minnesota Exchange's neutral platform allows anyone to share and engage in the startup community in ways that they might not have before. For example, if a founder is looking to hire someone and needs human resources help, they can turn to Minnesota Exchange for advice.
"There are individuals that work in HR departments in the corporate sector that think they have no role in the startup ecosystem," Mollgaard said. "But they do, their advice is critical."
Prior to founding Kinectic, Eul spent nearly six years working at Minneapolis-based Kipsu, a software company that helps hotels connect with customers.
He was motived to start Kinetic after realizing social networks are focused on vanity metrics, and are too one-sided to work effectively for networking.
"We take a concierge approach to focus on the conversation and eliminate all the noise of the likes, and the retweets and the follows to get to the heart of the conversation," Eul said.
