Tim Schuster founded a church in 2012 with the goal of reimagining the experience so it revolved more around people and relationships.
A decade later, the church no longer exists, but the concept of bringing community together lives on with Schuster’s startup Popup Think Tank.
The Minneapolis-based company works by bringing 30 volunteers around a single founder to brainstorm for two hours.
Since its founding in 2016, Schuster had been treating the company as a part-time side project while he went on to serve as an entrepreneur in residence at Thrivent Financial and co-founded LegalQ, a Beta cohort company.
But five months ago, Schuster leapt into Popup Think Tank full-time to ride the wave of increased entrepreneurship that has come out of the pandemic.
“The world is shifting, everything's changing,” Schuster said. “Part of it is the great resignation, part of it is just people getting a vision.”
Schuster’s goal this year is to work with 40 founders, then 80 next year. That level of growth will require him to recruit and train facilitators and also expand geographically to areas such as Denver and Cincinnati.
Beyond that, Schuster sees a future where Popup Think Tank could team with startup accelerators or venture capital firms to boost their portfolio companies.
In the room
Each Popup Think Tank follows a loose template that then leads to an infinite amount of ideas.
First, Schuster interviews the founder in front of the audience to connect and hear their unique challenges. After that, brainstorming prompts are dispensed based on what the founder needs new ideas or connections around.
The audience members are mined from each founder's personal network and includes family, friends, mentors and investors. Each participant is then added to a list and has the opportunity to sign up for future events.
When the session is complete, volunteers fill out a survey outlining how they want to help the founder in the future. Schuster said 50 to 70% of participants end of wanting to help, either through an introduction to someone in their network or following up on an idea.
“It’s a pretty cool lift when you think about how founders can activate their communities and their networks around their projects,” Schuster said.
Schuster then does a follow-up session with each founder to digest the information and coach them through acting on the ideas.
He said founders and entrepreneurs in the earliest stages of their startup benefit the most from the sessions because they have enough vision and momentum, but their identity is still being fleshed out.
Past Popup Think Thank participants include Junita’s Jar and We Sparkle Co., which was named one of Minne Inno’s 2021 Startups to Watch.
Steph LaFlora, co-founder and CEO of Crownhunt.io, said doing a session with Popup Think Tank led to crucial meetings and took the Denver-based company to the next level.
“We secured a VC meeting due to this event and initiated a collaboration with a strategic partner,” Laflora said in a statement. “Having everyone in the room changes everything, and it was a turbocharge for the next phase of our business.”
