Entrepreneur Success Stories

Successful entrepreneurs have said that fearlessness, resilience, and being true to oneself are three of the most important qualities an entrepreneur must have when starting his/her own business. Tonight’s meeting on “Entrepreneur Success Stories” will offer examples of those success stories from serial entrepreneurs and business people, in consumer, high tech and life science fields, who have overcome the odds to be extremely successful today.  Real stories of Entrepreneurial challenges, surprises, disappointments, victories and triumph.  Learn from the experts:  founders who have had the courage and tenacity to step out on their own, and navigate the rough waters of the unknown.  If you are thinking of starting your own business, or if you are already a company founder, learn from those who have gone before you.  What they have experienced may help you avoid a pitfall or two, and accelerate your own company’s progress.  Why reinvent the wheel when others willingly share their wisdom?  A question and answer session follows the presentation, and panelists are available afterwards for responses to individual questions.

Speakers:

Janet J. Kraus, CEO, Peach Underneath, women’s intimate apparel company, http://www.peachunderneath.com/ and Senior Lecturer in the Entrepreneurial Management Unit at the Harvard Business School. A Yale graduate and two time business founder, with two successful exits, Janet has been involved in every stage of the entrepreneurial process including idea generation, product development, building teams, fund raising, identification of key strategic partners, business development and direct sales, operational scaling, crisis and recovery, buying and exiting companies.   In 1997, Janet co-founded Circles, a concierge and events company which grew to be a $60 million company, with nearly 1000 consultants, before being sold to Sodexo in October 2007.  After Circles, Janet led Spire, a company designed to create social resource sharing platforms specializing in travel and leisure. Janet sold Spire to Perfect Escapes in 2010.  Janet is a recipient of Boston’s 40 under 40 and was a finalist of Ernst and Young’s Entrepreneur of the Year. Circles was awarded the Small Business of the Year Award by the Chamber of Commerce. Janet sits on advisory boards of six start-up companies and The Capital Network (TCN).

Geoffrey von Maltzahn, Ph.D. is New Ventures Principal at Flagship Ventures, http://www.flagshipventures.com/ where he focuses on inventing technologies and starting breakthrough companies within Flagship VentureLabs.  As one experienced in start-up founding, leadership, serial entrepreneurship, Geoff is an inventor, founder and entrepreneur of breakthrough life science and sustainability ventures that help address global challenges, create large markets, and provide significant value to society. He is a founder of the companies Symbiota, Seres Health, Pronutria, Sienna Labs, Nanopartz, and others, and has served as President at Symbiota, Chief Technology Officer at Seres Health, and VP Product Discovery at Pronutria.  In Seres Health, Geoff led the discovery of the first clinically-validated microbiome therapeutic, and the build-out of its discovery platform. In Pronutria, Geoff built the first platform to discover a new class of therapeutic proteins that deliver tailored amino acid combinations to treat a variety of muscle and metabolic diseases. He has been named an inventor on over 100 patents and applications and received more than 20 awards and honors for entrepreneurship and innovation, including the prestigious Lemelson-MIT student prize. He was awarded a Ph.D. from MIT; a M.S. from UCSD; and a S.B. from MIT.

Bernd Schoner, VP Business Development, ThingMagic Division, Trimble Navigation http://www.trimble.com/  is the author of The Tech Entrepreneur’s Survival Guide:  How to Bootstrap Your Startup, Lead Through Tough Times, and Cash In for Success (McGraw-Hill, May 2014). In his book Bernd provides the reader with a complete life cycle guide to technology entrepreneurship and tells the story of ThingMagic, the tech startup he cofounded after graduating from MIT the dot-com bust, navigated through market crises and internal turmoil, and the global financial meltdown intact, and eventually sold it to a multibillion-dollar, multinational public technology company (See www.berndschoner.com). During his time at ThingMagic Bernd served in various positions including Managing Partner of ThingMagic LLC where he managed the operations including customer acquisition, customer management, and technical operations, and later President of ThingMagic Inc. where he was at various times responsible for engineering, development, manufacturing, international sales, key account sales, and business development. Bernd holds masters degrees in electrical engineering from RWTH Aachen and in industrial engineering from Ecole Centrale de Paris. He earned his Ph.D. from the MIT Media Laboratory in 2000.

Moderator:

Robert Adelson, business and tax attorney and partner at the Boston law firm of Engel & Schultz LLP (www.ExecutiveEmploymentAttorney.com), and Chairman of IEEE Boston Entrepreneurs’ Network.  Rob has been an attorney for over 30 years specialized in business, tax, stock and options, employment, contracts, financings, trademarks and intellectual property.  Rob began as an associate at major New York City law firms before returning home to Boston in 1985 where he has since been a partner in small and medium sized firms before joining his present firm in 2004.  Rob represents entrepreneurs, start-ups and small companies, independent contractors and employees and executives.    Rob is a frequent speaker on business law topics and author of numerous articles published in Boston Business Journal, Mass High Tech and other publications. He has been named among the “Top 20 Boston Startup Lawyers” by ChubbyBrain.com, a website that provides tools for entrepreneurs. Rob has been on the ENET Board since 2002 and Chairman since 2009 and is also a Co-Founder and Board member of the 128 Innovation Capital Group. He holds degrees from Boston University, B.A., summa cum laude, Northwestern University (Chicago), J.D., Law Review, and New York University, LL.M. in Taxation.

Meeting Location: : Constant Contact, Inc., 1601 Trapelo Rd., 3^RD Floor, The Great Room, Waltham, MA (Exit 28B, I-95/Route 128)

PRE-MEETING Pay-as-you-go DINNER at 5:15 PM (sharp) at Bertucci’s, Waltham.

Information: Boston Entrepreneurs’ Network Website at (http://www.boston-enet.org )

Directions: http://www.constantcontact.com/about-constant-contact/office-location-waltham.jsp

Reservations: ENET Constant Contact meetings are free to ENET members, $20 for non-members and $10 for students with a current university ID. No reservations are needed for the dinner. To expedite sign-in for the meeting, we ask that everyone — members as well as non-members — pre-register for the meeting online. Pre-registration is available until midnight the day before the meeting. If you cannot pre-register, you are welcome to register at the door.