TECHdotMN: News about Minnesota Startups

Many of my closest friends in the Twin Cities metro tech community ask me for my perspective of what it is like to build a tech business in greater Minnesota.

Founding W3i eleven years ago in St. Cloud has certainly had its advantages and disadvantages.  Rather than answering this question solely based on my experiences alone, I interviewed several other greater Minnesota tech entrepreneurs for their feedback on this subject.

With so much thoughtful input, I decided to answer this question in a three post series: the first examined the advantages, followed by the disadvantages, and this last installment is about different takeaways for both the Twin Cities and greater Minnesota tech communities to consider.

Part III: The takeaways of starting and growing a tech company in greater Minnesota.

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Many of my closest friends in the Twin Cities metro tech community ask me for my perspective of what it is like to build a tech business in greater Minnesota.

Founding W3i eleven years ago in St. Cloud has certainly had its advantages and disadvantages.  Rather than answering this question solely based on my experiences alone, I interviewed several other greater Minnesota tech entrepreneurs for their feedback on this subject.

With so much thoughtful input, I decided to answer this question in a three post series: the first post will focus on advantages, followed by a second post on disadvantages and the third and final will focus on how the Twin Cities tech community can support greater Minnesota tech hubs — and vice versa.

Part I: The advantages of starting and growing a tech company in greater Minnesota.

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W3i has officially launched a new mobile game publishing venture called Recharge Studios, in addition to a $1m (minimum) fund targeted at iOS mobile gaming startups.

“The tech industry is clearly growing in the area of free-to-play mobile/social gaming and Minnesota needs to have to have it’s own dedicated resource in this space,” declares Robert Weber, VP and Co founder of parent company W3i.

As a wholly-owned subsidiary, Recharge Studios is specifically seeking to fund iOS developers/teams with an original game concept or prototype, past development experience, business and marketing plan, commitment to the freemium revenue model and plans for social game mechanics. Compulsion loop, time management or simulation games are types of the gaming sub genres of interest to Recharge, who anticipates the funding of at least 10 new gaming startups — beginning next month.

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Last Saturday, Mike Bollinger and I moderated a panel discussion at Minnebar focused on the concept of improving Minnesota’s startup community.  This session, titled “How Can Minnesota Be Better“, can be viewed in its entirety above with credit to our panelists who generously shared their insights and perspectives.  Special thanks to Brett Thoreson for the steady hand and Andrew Frenz for collecting audience questions.

Joel Dahlin, Geoff Dutton and Derrick Shields have collectively summarized the experience.  Leave a comment if you have an opinion to share…