One year, $80,000, zero equity taken
One year ago today, we announced the EC Impact Grants: non-dilutive cash for founders graduating our accelerators — TakeOff, InFlight, and Project Healthcare. The pitch was simple. Win a competition...
Events
Two Founders, a Governor, and a Janky Prototype at the McWhorter Circle Legacy Celebration
Mark Norton was stuck. He and his best friend had both quit good jobs — one at Apple, one practicing law — to build a diabetes management platform in Nashville....
The Best Pitch I Heard Last Week Came from a High Schooler
Ashanti Was Eating Nachos and Pitching Her Bakery She had maybe two minutes between investor rotations. Enough time to refuel, check her notes, and get ready to explain why Ashantii’s...
88 Founders Just Showed Up. Here’s What That Means for Nashville.
Danny Glushenkov is flying from Tel Aviv to Nashville this week. His company, Project M, builds causal AI for real-time clinical decisions — not just predicting what might happen to...
Mental Health Is a Leadership Skill — And She Has the Experience to Prove It
“You’re either going to slow down on your own or your body is going to slow you down.” Dr. Courtney Williams says this often. She says it to therapy clients,...
You Missed the Future of Work (And It Happened Over Free Lunch)
While you were eating a desk salad, a room full of EC members watched someone casually ask AI to remote into a Raspberry Pi and generate a motion graphics video....
You’re Not Too Late: Why Now Is the Best Time for Founders to Actually Start Using AI
Last year, Luke Thompson found a process one of his clients didn’t even know they were running. It was costing them $400,000 annually. The fix? A $200-per-month tool. They had...
The Five Questions That Got a Founder Unstuck: A Board Member’s Lesson
Elise Mitchell just joined the Nashville Entrepreneur Center board. She built Mitchell Communications Group from zero to 500% growth in five years, ran it for 18 years, then sold it....
How to Work a Networking Event When You Hate Networking
David Castro went to Coffee & Connections at the Nashville Entrepreneur Center in December. Four guys were already in the IceBrekr app before the event started. “When we got to...