Founder Profiles Archive

  • “Scheduling? The word is music to my ears. Who else thinks “fun” when they hear “scheduling”? Raise your hands!” Neil Greenberg squints into the standing-room only audience of the Elizabeth Theater on the second floor of Park Bar, the venue for the first CONNECTION meeting of Freshwater Transit. Indeed a few cautious hands go up, outing their owners’ passion for scheduling and fellow transit-nerdiness. Greenberg launches into another salvo on the nitty-gritty of transit planning and operations and the crowd begins to relax. He’s gregarious, jokey, the avatar of that overzealous high-school math teacher who doesn’t just want you to learn...

    Freshwater: Using Enthusiasm to Source Startup Talent for Public Transit

    “Scheduling? The word is music to my ears. Who else thinks “fun” when they hear “scheduling”? Raise your hands!” Neil Greenberg squints into the standing-room only audience of the Elizabeth Theater on the second floor of Park Bar, the venue for the first CONNECTION meeting of Freshwater Transit. Indeed a few cautious hands go up, outing their owners’ passion for scheduling and fellow transit-nerdiness. Greenberg launches into another salvo on the nitty-gritty of transit planning and operations and the crowd begins to relax. He’s gregarious, jokey, the avatar of that overzealous high-school math teacher who doesn’t just want you to learn...

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  • Elon Musk is the founder of PayPal, SpaceX, and Telsa Motors.

    Monday Motivation: Tell Me What You Don’t Like

    Elon Musk is the founder of PayPal, SpaceX, and Telsa Motors.

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  • Wouldn’t it be great if you were able to trace your food back to the farm it came from, whether staying in or dining out, so you can find food you feel good about eating? Check out Ann Arbor startup RealTimeFarms.com. The site is a year old, but founders Karl Rosaen and his wife Cara took the leap to startup-life when they realized that the opportunities for success in creating a startup were so high. After all, opportunities for success are everywhere these days. Originally from Michigan, Karl and Cara jetted off to California in 2005 where Karl had the...

    Wouldn’t It Be Great If…

    Wouldn’t it be great if you were able to trace your food back to the farm it came from, whether staying in or dining out, so you can find food you feel good about eating? Check out Ann Arbor startup RealTimeFarms.com. The site is a year old, but founders Karl Rosaen and his wife Cara took the leap to startup-life when they realized that the opportunities for success in creating a startup were so high. After all, opportunities for success are everywhere these days. Originally from Michigan, Karl and Cara jetted off to California in 2005 where Karl had the...

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  • This week I met a “happenstance-entrepreneur;” that is, an entrepreneur who didn’t necessarily set out to start a business. A doctor-in-residence by trade, metro-Detroit doctor Tashfeen Ekram recognized a potential business in his daily routine at work in his office. The inspiration for the product? Frequent appointment cancellations. We all are familiar with this scenario: we set-up an appointment at the doctor’s or dentist’s office months in advance, and then something ‘more important’ comes up at the last minute, meaning we have to cancel just hours before the appointment. As convenient that is for us as consumers, this leaves the service provider...

    Happenstance Entrepreneurship: SchedFull

    This week I met a “happenstance-entrepreneur;” that is, an entrepreneur who didn’t necessarily set out to start a business. A doctor-in-residence by trade, metro-Detroit doctor Tashfeen Ekram recognized a potential business in his daily routine at work in his office. The inspiration for the product? Frequent appointment cancellations. We all are familiar with this scenario: we set-up an appointment at the doctor’s or dentist’s office months in advance, and then something ‘more important’ comes up at the last minute, meaning we have to cancel just hours before the appointment. As convenient that is for us as consumers, this leaves the service provider...

    Continue Reading...