Finding an opportunity, creating a plan, and having a team were the three key points that Chris Motley , St. Louis-based entrepreneur and founder of Better Weekdays,stressed during his keynote speech at the Capital Innovators Demo Day, where fellow CEOs pitched their startup companies to an audience of investors.
Capital Innovators is an entrepreneurial support organization that acts as an accelerator for startups, corporations, and universities. Out of 1,000 applications, 12 companies were selected this year. Four of the companies came from different countries, including Singapore and Mexico. Three of them are homegrown out of St. Louis, and some are deciding to stay in the city due to all of the different resources it has to offer.
As a member of Capital Innovators class of 2014, Motley was glad to return and contribute to the organization.
“Capital Innovators was the first organization that invested in us in St. Louis,” Motley said at Demo Day, held at The Pageant on the Delmar Loop on Tuesday, May 15. “That changed everything for our business because we had no money and no support until Capital Innovators invested in us. So having the opportunity to come back and address people that have been investors in Capital Innovators and entrepreneurs is a no-brainer.”
After participating in Capital Innovators as a fresh new entrepreneur, Motley came back to work as a mentor for some of the companies involved in the years to follow. However, this year he has not been as hands-on for good reason.
“This year has been the most busy in our company’s history,” Motley said “We generated over a million dollars in revenue. We partnered with the Bill Gates Foundation. We got 60,000 users in the last three months. So if I can give back with like a six-minute talk, I’m happy to do it.”
The speech Motley gave focused on how to get results reaching an end goal. As the keynote speaker, Motley had the challenging task to find a topic that such a diverse audience could find relative in their current situation.
“A universal principle is ‘I’m trying to accomplish this goal or achieve this opportunity, how do I do It?’” Motley said. “That applies to an investor who is trying to find the best deal to invest in, it applies to an entrepreneurial support organization who wants to be relevant, and it most certainly applies to entrepreneurs who are trying to communicate their opportunity to get money oftentimes or customers or partners.”
A goal that the planners of Demo Day had in mind was to see their companies grow through the help of their partners. One of the major ways Capital Innovators did that was through the art of networking.
Fellow investor and serial African-American entrepreneur Chris Thomas went around speaking with different startup companies to look for investment partners, as well as learn how each startup was created. He too believed in networking as one of the most important tools to push startups towards the right direction.
“It’s all about networking, and I think as a minority we need to start doing more of it,” said Thomas. “When we don’t see people that look like us, a lot of us don’t feel comfortable talking to them, but we got to change that. I think St. Louis is in the middle of a renaissance, in spite of all the political problems. But I think from an economic perspective there’s a huge opportunity. We have to go out there and grab it. No one is going to give us anything.”
Motley agrees that networking is critical to running a successful functioning operation.
“A quote that I heard recently is that ‘business moves at the speed of trust,’” Motley said, “and what you’re doing when you’re networking is you’re establishing trust.”
For more information, visit capitalinnovators.com.
