And the Winner Is…

January 27, 2016

Well, the day is finally here. I’m ready to announce the winners of the Neal’s Running Start program. The decision process was much harder than I ever anticipated, as I had so many good candidates apply.

In fact, I had so many good candidates that I decided to change the rules a bit.  I originally planned to bring three entrepreneurs to San Francisco, but in the end, the applications were so strong, I decided to go with four winners instead.

Congratulations to the following entrepreneurs, in alphabetical order of their company names:

• Katherine Regnier is the CEO of Coconut Calendar, which is based in Saskatchewan, Canada. – http://www.coconutcalendar.com

• Neal Oddens is the CEO of IncreaseOnline, which is based in Amsterdam (Two Neals, so we’re going to have to have a nickname for you, Neal O. http://www.increaseonline.com

• Mario Aguilera is the CEO of Tespack, which is based in Helsinki – http://www.tespack.com/eu/

• Antti Rikkien is the Co-Founder of Zero Keyboard, which is also coincidentally based in Helsinki – http://zerokeyboard.com/

All of these winners come from very different companies and backgrounds, which I think will make the whole experience more productive and interesting for everyone.  I chose all of them for specific reasons. In the next few weeks, I will do a blog post on each of them individually so you can all get to know them before they arrive in San Francisco this Spring.

I’d like to send out a big thank you to the White Bull conference in Barcelona who introduced me to some fine European entrepreneurs.  Two of the winners came through their introductions and assistance.  I hope to spend more time with White Bull this summer and Fall talking about the results of this adventure.

Congratulations to the winners, and I look forward to their adventures in San Francisco.  I’ll keep you posted as we get closer to their arrival.