Matt Popowski

Entrepreneurs spend a lot of time and effort building the right connections to be successful— mentors, talent, and especially investors. Imagine you could walk into a business event and quickly pair up with the right people in the room to have meaningful conversations that yield the greatest return. No more wandering around the room guessing who might benefit your venture.    That’s the design behind Coeo, a new relationship building app developed by Asheville-based Anthroware. Now imagine, instead of a room there’s a whole office building, and you get to strategically partner up with who your neighbors will be. That’s the...

Some of the brightest and most accomplished entrepreneurs will tell you a mentor played a valuable role during some pivotal moment in their company’s rocky road to success.  Serial entrepreneur Josh Dorfman has spent two years studying how startup ecosystems in small to medium sized cities like Boulder, Nashville and Raleigh-Durham produce many more successful startups than others. The director of Venture Asheville, who previously started “green economy” e-commerce businesses, believes that in addition to attracting talent, organizing capital and building connectivity, a startup ecosystem needs world-class mentorship.  Dorfman also manages Asheville Angels, a new investor group of about 50 members that launched...