SPEAKER: Brian Tsuchiya

Founder of Startup Guru

Brian Tsuchiya is an authority on crowdfunding, after spending the last 8 years researching a variety of methods he has unique experiences with crowds. Including having a company entirely funded with "sweat equity" from over one hundred people. Managing that many shareholders is unique for a privately held startup. Brian also has raised over $2M of private equity.

Brian is the founder of StartUp Guru and started his entrepreneurial journey 18 years ago and has since launched ten startups. Startup Guru is the culmination of this extraordinary journey. He has openly shared for the first 40 years of his life he primarily served himself and lived a life without purpose.  Then in June of 2006 he read a book that would change his life forever.  He embarked on a journey that connected his life purpose with his entrepreneurial career.  Through this work he understood his patterns and defined his life in a way that revealed his purpose.  Forged in him was the way of the entrepreneur.

SPEAKER: Karl Dakin

CEO of DaVinci Quest and Senior Fellow of the DaVinci Institute

Mr. Dakin is taking his talent for converting innovations into businesses and applying it to building experts – people with special knowledge.  Over his career of 32 years in new business startups and new product development, he has repeatedly been recognized as expert on different technical, business and legal subjects. Working continuously on the bleeding edge of innovation, Mr. Dakin has continuously dealt with the need to verify and validate the credibility of ideas and the people who create and promote them.

Mr. Dakin shares his knowledge through extensive speaking, writing and teaching while constantly testing the latest and greatest forms of communication and education.  He is an extraordinary communicator with expertise in collaboration, social enterprises, new product development and commercialization, early stage private equity funding, intellectual property management, and charitable community relations.

Through DaVinci Quest, Mr. Dakin is now launching the introduction of a new bundled service, Above the Crowd, to help individuals gain recognition for their expertise to generate more revenue, to enhance their careers and to advance their businesses and charitable causes. 

SPEAKER: Steve Reaser

Serial entrepreneur and seed-stage investor

Steve Reaser is a serial entrepreneur and seed-stage investor who has recently moved west to join the Boulder startup community. Most recently Steve co-founded an educational technology company in Raleigh, NC, which has grown profitably to over one million users by cultivating an engaged community of instructors.

HOST: Steve Baker

Senior Fellow, Business Advisor and Author

Steve Baker is a small business advocate with a passion for business and a drive for success. As a founder of successful companies, a corporate executive and business advisor, he has over 25 years of experience developing and launching new businesses. He has led companies in every phase of business cycle from startup to exit in both private and public sectors. He guided one of his startup companies through a successful public offering of stock (IPO) and achieved revenues of $500 million.

Steve directs business development and strategic marketing, and has taken companies from startup to millions of dollars in revenues in such diverse industries as international travel, financial software, franchising, manufacturing, ergonomics, medical devices, migraine headache treatment, and an international medical wellness resort.

As a small business advocate, Steve thrives on the challenge of solving problems that impede business growth and success. As a Senior Fellow at the DaVinci Institute, a futurist think-tank, he enjoys helping entrepreneurs succeed. He is the author of the award winning book Pushing Water Uphill With A Rake and is a frequent public speaker to business groups and university students, discussing entrepreneurship and ethics.