Understanding your target market is essential for growth. This session will cover market research techniques, customer segmentation, what investors are looking for, and much more. Learn strategies for leveraging data to meet customer needs, secure funding and outperform competitors.

Building a business? Ever wish you could speak to and learn directly from subject matter experts (while never leaving your couch)? Join host Andy Lee from the University of Minnesota's Technology Commercialization office each Wednesday for this exciting and casual AMA ('ask me anything') style series on business building fundamentals. Check out all of the talks here: https://www.crowdcast.io/@techcomm

This event series is brought to you with support from Launch Minnesota, a statewide collaborative effort to accelerate the growth of startups and amplify Minnesota as a national leader in innovation.

Stephanie is Partner, Platform at Bread & Butter Ventures where she works to add continuous value to portfolio companies and founders. She is the former Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Techstars Farm to Fork Accelerator in partnership with Cargill and Ecolab. Steph has worked with numerous early stage startups as a mentor and advisor, and has received the Techstars #givefirst award three separate times. She has hands-on expertise in bringing products and companies to market while building, cultivating and sustaining customer bases online and off.

Stephanie is the founder of Starting Up North, a publication focused on telling the stories and sharing the insights of Minnesota startups, innovators and their ecosystem, and Goby Partners, a marketing consultancy for startups and growing brands. Prior to Goby, Stephanie was employee #1 at Particle, the leading development platform for the Internet of Things. She established operational infrastructure and built the Particle brand in the marketplace by leading communications, social media, and product launches.

Deb is the Innovator Outreach and Development Specialist at MIN-Corps. She spent over 20 years working on intellectual property teams at big tech and medical device companies, where her roles spanned the entire innovation lifecycle, from idea conception to patent litigation and licensing negotiation, and included patent analysis, competitive intelligence, and market assessment.  

In her current role, she works closely with graduate students, post-docs, research scientists, and faculty members who are eager to translate their research into impactful commercial ventures.  She focuses on identifying and recruiting these talented individuals for NSF-funded entrepreneurial education opportunities such as the I-Corps Teams program, where participants learn to refine their value propositions and navigate the complex journey of bringing their innovations to market. 

Knowing Your Market