A Nashville investor told founders where their first check actually comes from.
Phil Shmerling skipped the pitch-deck advice at an EC Lunch & Learn and explained where Nashville founders' first checks actually come from.
Thought Leadership
Nashville doesn’t have a resource problem for minority founders. It has a connection problem.
Five Morehead-Cain Scholars ran 33 interviews on minority founders in Nashville. The finding: it's not a resource problem — it's a connection problem.
Healthcare founders keep solving the wrong problem
Three advisors, 22 companies, one room. Here’s what actually got said. Most startup advice is recycled. Know your customer. Find product-market fit. Tell your story. You’ve heard it. The problem...
What Building a Healthcare Company Taught 30 Founders in One Morning
Saurabh Sinha didn’t bring a deck. He walked into the Nashville Entrepreneur Center on February 27 and sat down with 22 healthcare founders — people building burnout platforms, causal AI...
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,...
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...
From Mailbox to Mentor: How Amy Good Found More Than an Address at the EC
Amy Good joined the Nashville Entrepreneur Center for a mailbox. Two years later, she’s an advisor, a Lunch & Learn facilitator, and last month, she brought her seven-year-old daughter Lindley...
5 Ways to Make Every Networking Conversation Count
If you have ever left a networking event wondering why you went in the first place, you are not alone. At our recent Lunch & Learn, business strategist and serial...