I was excited to discover the other selected companies and was looking forward to meeting their founders, as well as my mentors, but mostly I was thrilled at the initiative and what it means to women who dream of having successful businesses someday. So, first of all, Thank You Prosper Team for believing in us, investing in us and helping us to reach our dreams.
Since, this was my first visit to St. Louis and Missouri, I was a little apprehensive. Fortunately, SouthWest has flights from both SFO and SJC to STL. I chose to stay in a downtown hotel near T-Rex, where Prosper’s office is located. The MetroLink is an easy ride from the airport into downtown, and I had no issues finding my way around even though it was late in the evening.
In the morning, along with members of the class, we met with Dr. Mary Jo Gorman, who founded and led, Advanced ICU care, a company that improves the quality of healthcare and reduces costs of many hospitals across America by providing a virtual ICU team. We met at T-Rex, (an acronym – not the dinosaur), which is a fantastic co-working space that hosts several startups in St. Louis. We got a tour of the facility, and each of the companies got a spacious co-working space (HUGE by SF standards) along with Wi-Fi and ability to book conference rooms.
I was amazed by the time and attention that my mentors gave to me which include Maxine Clark, who founded a 400 million dollar company Build a Bear and Cindy Teasdale, founder of Makaboo. I am also grateful that my mentor’s are women who have tremendous experience in building brands and are passionate about books, technology and education. Already in the 1st week they have tasked me with looking closely at the business and being prepared with answers about KiteReaders on a wide range of topics including marketing, pitching, financials, product and strategy. As a technical co-founder, I had mostly been focussed on the technology and product. As my co-founder/husband Chintu, said to me, “Think of it as a business bootcamp, learn, grow and thrive”.
The other companies included
– Bookalokal, founded by Evelyn White, a Harvard MBA who speaks french like a native.
– Champio, founded by a Jolijt Tamanaha, a college senior who has already sold her 1st startup.
– Healthy Me, founded by Mary Louise Helbig, a 2nd time startup founder and a native of St. Louis.
– Smart Monitor, founded by Anoo Nathan a 3rd time start-up founder, who like myself is from the SF bay area.
– Wondermento, founded by Betsy Fore, a successful toy inventor.
Lunch with Prosper team
It was a great honor for me and my company, KiteReaders, to be selected along with these smart, talented and passionate women. Over the next few weeks, I hope to get to know them as we each work hard on our journey’s to take our dreams to next level and build our companies.
Prosper and Cultivation Capital had also organized a launch party in the evening. It was great to see the business leaders of St. Louis community in high spirits over this endeavor. I was greatly moved by Jennifer Ehlen’s speech as she talked about the goals of Prosper and her desire to see women entrepreneurs succeed and also St. Louis succeed. I had a chance to demo my apps and e-books to those who came, as well as meet the local press. Farrah Fazal from KSDK did an awesome segment for the 6′o-clock news of all the companies.
Overall it was a great 1st week, I look forward to the rest of the my time here and will post an update in a few weeks as we progress through the program.