The Michigan Founder Finder — a website that assists students, professors, and community members partner and work together on startup businesses — has accumulated nearly 300 profiles since first launching in August.
“We’re excited,” says Sarika Gupta, associate director for the Zell Lurie Institute at the University of Michigan’s Stephen M. Ross School of Business, which launched the website along with Rockville, Md.-based CoFoundersLab. “We’re just getting momentum and getting it out there. It’s one of those tools that only becomes successful as more users hop on board.”
Currently, about one third of the users on the sites are students, while the other two-thirds consist of alumni and community members. However, Gupta says the site is not intended to be used by only those in the University of Michigan area — it’s for the whole state. “We want to make it as widely used as possible,” Gupta says, noting that she has heard several success stories from students who have found business partners via the portal.
She adds that CoFoundersLab, which based the Michigan Founder Finder off of its own website, cofounderslab.com, will promote the platform at the CoFounderLab Matchup Detroit on March 19 at Grand Circus in downtown Detroit. To learn more about the event, click here.
To create a profile on the Michigan Founder Finder, which Gupta says now includes adviser and intern matching opportunities for students, visit http://michigan.cofounderslab.com.
In other news, applications for Launch Detroit, Detroit Technology Exchange’s 10-week summer accelerator, are due by Friday. Designed for college students and recent graduates, the program claims success stories including SitSpoon, which recently made its first sale to a center for people with developmental disabilities. Other Launch Detroit alumni have gone national, says Marielle Tenkin, spokeswoman for Techtown Detroit.
“MyFabFive, a restaurant review site, launched nationwide, and they now have sites in Ann Arbor, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, and Portland,” Tenkin said.
To apply for the program, click here.
