{"id":145013,"date":"2025-09-09T21:32:08","date_gmt":"2025-09-09T21:32:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/145013\/"},"modified":"2025-09-09T21:32:08","modified_gmt":"2025-09-09T21:32:08","slug":"4-takeaways-from-day-one-of-launch-dayton-startup-week","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/145013\/","title":{"rendered":"4 takeaways from day one of Launch Dayton Startup Week"},"content":{"rendered":"

Launch Dayton\u2019s Startup Week runs Tuesday and Wednesday this year, beginning at 9:30 a.m. each day. Startup Week continues this evening with the pitch competition held at 5 p.m. at Yellow Cab Tavern, where teams of entrepreneurs will compete for capital funding. <\/p>\n

What began as a humble gathering of like-minded Dayton entrepreneurs has become a cornerstone event of the Entrepreneurial Center in the Dayton Arcade. <\/p>\n

Several of the founders that came to that first startup week are still in business, said Parallax Advanced Research\u2019s John Owen.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy favorite thing about entrepreneurship, about Startup Week, is the energy in the room,\u201d he said. \u201cThe most exciting thing, I think, is that the people from five years ago, 10 years ago, that were starting out in your seat are the people you\u2019ll hear stories from.\u201d<\/p>\n

ExploreEntrepreneur spearheading multimillion-dollar redevelopment of old Eavey Exchange building in Xenia<\/a><\/p>\n

Here are four insights from Tuesday\u2019s keynote, as well as other local business experts:<\/p>\n

Be bigger than your technology<\/p>\n

A common pitfall, especially for technology startups, is thinking of their business – and presenting it to customers – in terms of what the product does, rather than what the product will enable the customer to do, Sowder said.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery screen, every button is a promise that you\u2019re going to be able to do something,\u201d he said. \u201cEvery contract you sign is a promise…and that gets you thinking as well: are the promises you\u2019re making the ones that you actually want to keep in your business?\u201d<\/p>\n

Effectively communicating your company depends on the emotional connections you can make with your customers, Sowder said.<\/p>\n

\"Fifth\"iconBusinesses succeed or fail in the \u201cpromise gap.\u201d<\/p>\n

The \u201cpromise gap\u201d is the difference between what a startup often says they can do, and what they actually deliver, Sowder said. <\/p>\n

\u201cA startup is a bundle of promises,\u201d he said. \u201cTransparency is the input, and trust is the output. If we\u2019re gonna ask for trust, we need to give transparency on the front end.\u201d<\/p>\n

Customers, with any company, have a \u201cpromise budget,\u201d Sowder said, which is the set of promises a system can reliably support before users stop trusting them.<\/p>\n

\u201cCommunication is key, but there are certain companies that you use that you have no slack for,\u201d he said. \u201cYou know what I think people actually want? I think people actually want to use companies\u2019 products and services without getting gaslit by the T\u2019s and C\u2019s on the back end.\u201d<\/p>\n

ExploreOur 2025 guide to haunted houses and attractions in Dayton, Springfield and more<\/a>Use AI to get started, get unstuck, and get ahead <\/p>\n

Most users of artificial intelligence right now use the technology for what Sowder calls \u201cmonkey-do\u201d work, like transcribing and summarizing, which are not that helpful in the broader process of running your business, Sowder said.<\/p>\n

\u201cReally what I want to help people use artificial intelligence for is to get started, to get unstuck, and to get ahead. Those are mindsets,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

AI should be brought in much earlier in the process, Sowder added, by generating research, stress-testing ideas, and even playing devil\u2019s advocate on behalf of the customer.<\/p>\n

\u201cAsking AI to take the other side of your argument is something we never see enough of,\u201d he said. \u201cAI makes good critical thinkers better critical thinkers, and if you\u2019re not a good critical thinker, it\u2019s going to expose you.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Randy\"iconDayton has a unique entrepreneurial ecosystem<\/p>\n

The Dayton region has a rich history of innovation. For modern entrepreneurs, this means that Dayton entrepreneurs have a unique set of resources – and a unique set of pitfalls. <\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of startups don\u2019t know that while you\u2019re validating your product, you shouldn\u2019t go straight for dilutive capital, and that\u2019s because Dayton exists,\u201d Sowder said. \u201cWe have folks here that have such a deep history of non-dilutive funding.\u201d<\/p>\n

From the Wright Brothers\u2019 invention of the airplane to Charles Kettering\u2019s invention of the electric cash register, Dayton innovation has always been intertwined with business.<\/p>\n

\u201cDayton has a rich history of innovation that often goes unsung,\u201d said Robert DiTommaso, President of Winsupply\u2019s Support Services Group. \u201cWe\u2019re the city of the Wright Brothers, who were not just engineers, but also determined entrepreneurs…that same spirit lives on in this room today.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Launch Dayton\u2019s Startup Week runs Tuesday and Wednesday this year, beginning at 9:30 a.m. each day. Startup Week…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":145014,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[28,158],"class_list":{"0":"post-145013","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entrepreneurship","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-entrepreneurship"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145013","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=145013"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145013\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/145014"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=145013"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=145013"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=145013"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}