True Talk Entrepreneurship Event Series Heads to Atlanta and Detroit

Having built Upsie in St. Paul, Minnesota, I’ve got a particular soft spot for startups grown outside of the Valley and other big cities where there’s venture capital connection aplenty.

St. Paul gave my team at Upsie a place to grow in a way that nurtured a kind of uninhibited creativity and what I like to call “drive with pride.” I was one of the lucky small-city founders who was able to get an inroad to venture capital and fundraise for my company.

Through our True Talk event series, we’ve met founders outside our immediate network across the U.S. We’ve shared emotional moments where founders have shared their struggles around growing companies while battling illness, taking hard-to-hear feedback and molding it into useful motivation, and raising funds at the last hour to keep their dreams alive.

Our intent was not only to share who we are at True and the product we offer (very early-stage venture capital) but also to broadcast more of the wisdom of our founder network outside of our walls and into communities and cities where there’s so much hunger for it.

Peloton and Ernesta Founder John Foley, JusticeText Founder Devshi Mehrotra, and Moneta Health Founder Paul Campbell are just a few of the entrepreneurs who have generously taken to the stage to share the hardest parts of their journeys to the benefit of everyone in the room.

Our next True Talks will be on October 22nd in Atlanta and November 14th in Detroit. We invite anyone curious to talk tech, fundraising, or innovation at large to join us for evenings of conversation, fireside chats, and some tasty food and drink. RSVP or reshare on LinkedIn to help us spread the word.  I’m particularly excited to hear Miles Dotson of Sanctuary for Sustainable Artistry talk shop in Atlanta and Dug Song to give us the scoop on what it was like to navigate his company’s acquisition by Cisco later in the year in Detroit.

Whether our event attendees end up pitching True or not, we consider every city where we show up a community win if we’ve helped a founder, innovator, AI builder, or creative powerhouse understand what they can do to scale their ideas into businesses. Do join us. We hope to see you there!