General News

Software developer and entrepreneur Chris Dix founded Thoughtpost five years ago as a vehicle to market his software consulting work. He worked with entities across a large range of industries ranging from NASA to vending machine operators to finance firms. Then last year, he had an idea for his own product and went through some […]

On the weekend of October 13th, three graduate students representing UNC Charlotte’s College of Computing and Informatics (CCI) participated in Duke University’s HACKDuke Coding for Good event and earned a Wolfram Award. Though top teams are rewarded, HackDuke is more about collaboration than competition and is almost entirely focused on cultivateing ideas that aim to […]

Previous installments of this series focused on the critically important entrepreneurial action of customer discovery. Understanding the customer’s problems in the context of a proposed solution almost always generates insights that require the entrepreneur to adapt. Now, let’s consider how the entrepreneur responds and the importance of a realistic, fact-based assessment of the market. Customer […]

Seven European entrepreneurs paid a visit to the Queen City this week as part of the U.S. Department of State’s 2018 Young Transatlantic Innovative Leaders Initiative. Devin Collins, Ventureprise Interim Executive Director, hosted them on UNC Charlotte’s campus. For the full article

This fall, the 49er Foundry broadened its mission to engage students across campus who are working on ideas that solve business and social problems. These new student companies are working on ventures ranging from technology to enhance educational experiences to affordable advertising to small companies. The program is free to students and does not require […]

In the most recent article in our series on customer discovery, we advised you to use customer discovery to “listen and learn.” Although that sounds obvious and easy, startup entrepreneurs find that it takes conscious effort to accomplish meaningful listening. Completing multiple, effective interviews is useful only if you can make sense of what you […]

Former Ventureprise client and Gastonia entrepreneur shooting for the stars after achieving 1,650% growth in 3 years For the full article

When Treven Stoddard was a freshman at Clemson University, he struggled with passing calculus. To get through it, he leaned on a lot of external solutions. He also started to examine what topics he struggled with the most — and how technology could make the process easier and more effective. The result of that exploration […]

Previous installments have described how customer discovery helps the entrepreneur develop a well-defined value proposition and business model. Today, we explore the critical enabler of effective customer interviews. Meaningful information is generated from about 30 interviews in our experience with numerous teams. The National Science Foundation’s I-Corps program, in examining hundreds of teams, finds that […]

U.S. Department of State selects Devin Collins as U.S. mentor in International Entrepreneurial Program CHARLOTTE, NC- May 30, 2018- Ventureprise Associate Director Devin Collins will attend the U.S. Department of State’s 2018 Young Transatlantic Innovative Leaders Initiative (YTILI) Opening Summit in Portugal as a U.S. mentor on June 4th. Collins was selected for a second […]