Around 30 Bloomington entrepreneurs gathered Tuesday night at Dimension Mill at 642 N. Madison St. for Founders’ Stories and Social, a networking event with a five-member panel of founders of local start-up companies.
Attendees of the event listened to the panelists' stories for the first half of the event, then had the opportunity to network with the panelists and each other.
Elevate Ventures, a venture development organization, sponsored the event as a part of Mill Week. Mill Week is put on by Dimension Mill from Oct. 6 to 11 and is filled with different networking and start-up events.
Dimension Mill is a 501(c) (3) that offers co-working space to over 250 members and helps them acquire the skills they need to improve their businesses.
“We focus on companies that are tech-focused so that talent stays in Bloomington,” said Alison Zook, membership and events manager for Dimension Mill.
The panel members’ businesses are all technology-based, ranging from graphic design to regenerative agriculture.
Cy Megnin, emcee of the event and entrepreneur in residence at Elevate Ventures, said the panelists were chosen to demonstrate the entrepreneurship possibilities in Indiana.
Jason Hobson, panelist and CEO at Advancing Eco Agriculture, has a company that manufactures nutritional products for farmers to use on crops.
“Our mission is to fundamentally change the world’s food supply,” Hobson said.
Another panelist, Jessica Bussert, is the president at Wave Therapeutics Inc. Her company focuses on solving the problem of bed sores.
Bussert became interested in this project when she was working as an emergency room nurse and had a patient with painful bed sores.
“I decided in that moment that I was going to use my tech skills and my health care skills to try to address that problem in a better way than it had been addressed,” Bussert said.
Other panelists include Bill West, founder of Regatta VR ,Tyler Henke, co-founder of Cowork Btown, and Bryony Gomez-Palacio of Under Consideration, LLC .
Dimension Mill said it schedules events like this to aid their members in developing their businesses.
“My main focus is helping our members connect with the community and also helping the community connect with our members,” Zook said.
CORRECTION: A previous version of this article incorrectly identified Bill West's position. He was managing director of eLearning Brothers Custom but parted ways with the company in 2018. The IDS regrets this error.
