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Skip Walter: Discovering, Developing, and Trusting Your Inner Entrepreneur

March 5, 2014
6:00-8:00pm CST
IIT Institute of Design, 6th floor
350 N LaSalle St
Chicago, IL 60654

The start-up ecosystem and resources for entrepreneurs have expanded dramatically over the last ten years. Dan Pink in To Sell is Human shares the statistic that independent entrepreneurs may grow by 65 million by 2020 and become the majority of the American workforce. Figuring out how to engage with the new venture ecosystem is a challenge for those with the energy and passion to start their own venture. Skip Walter will share his research and experiences with start-up environments in Seattle, San Francisco (greater Bay Area), and Durham, North Carolina. In both his book, Emails to a Young Entrepreneur, and in the talk, Skip will talk about why early-stage ventures need human-centered designers to accelerate their growth. Join Skip as he shares excerpts from the video ethnography of the journey of an early-stage start-up in a Seattle B2B accelerator.


About Skip


Skip Walter creates private CEO peer advisory groups for executives of small- to medium-sized businesses to accelerate their growth while improving their personal relationships. He is an executive coach, University of Washington instructor teaching at the intersection of design and business, ethnographic researcher of start-up accelerators, and an early-stage venture mentor and angel investor. Skip is the author of Emails to a Young Entrepreneur (available spring 2014). He was the vice president of engineering for Aldus (now Adobe) Corporation and the father of ALL-IN-1, Digital Equipment Corporation's $1 billion-per-year integrated enterprise office automation system. Skip was the founding CEO/CTO for Attenex, achieving a cash flow positive state within three years. Attenex was sold to FTI Consulting in 2008 for $91 million. Skip has raised more than $25 million in new venture funding for software companies in the office automation, medical, and legal industries.

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