Resources
To help Louisville startups succeed
Accelerator, Pre-Accelerator, & Bootcamp Programs
CodeLouisville – software development
Forcht Center LaunchIt – Lean Startup training
Louisville Future of Work Initiative – digital skills
Louisville Skills – software development & life skills
Moonshine University – distilling industry
Power to Prosper – minority business accelerator
Team Treehouse – software development
Tech Louisville – IT support
Vogt Awards – tech startup accelerator
Wild Accelerator – for female founders
XLerateHealth – healthcare accelerator
Co-working Spaces & Hackerspaces
31e – co-working space Bardstown Rd
(c)space – co-working space for nonprofits
ChefSpace – commercial kitchen incubator
CO11AB – co-working downtown Louisville
Elevate at Bolt + Tie – co-working in Clarksville, IN
FirstBuild (GE @ UofL) – microfactory & prototyping maker space
Gigabit Experience Center (at LCCC) – meeting and event space
Hopewell – meeting rooms & workspaces in Paristown
iHub – co-working space Nucleus campus
Launch Louisville – co-working space
Lodgic Coworking (NuLu)
LouieLab (City of Louisville) – reservable meeting space for groups and events based in innovation
Love City – business incubation in Portland
LVL1 Hackerspace – Louisville’s hackerspace
Maker13 – maker space in Jeffersonville, IN
The Presley Post – Coworking, Main St Louisville
Story Louisville co-working NuLu
Regus Coworking Louisville – multiple coworking sites
The Root – co-working New Albany, IN
Warp Zone Louisville – game developer co-working and event space
Yes Working – co-working Baxter Ave Louisville
Find Louisville Startups
AngelList – Louisville startups
Crunchbase search (set location to Louisville, KY)
Gust – Louisville startups
Vik Chadha’s Louisville Startup Ecosystem Map
Local/State Government & Non-profit Support Organizations
Amplify
Canopy
Civic Data Alliance
Community Ventures Corp.
Endeavor Louisville
KYCombinator
KY Entrepreneur Network
Kentucky Science & Technology Corp – KSTC
Louisville Metro Dept of Economic Growth & Innovation
Louisville SBDC
RISE Louisville
SBA Louisville
SCORE Louisville
Women’s Business Center of Kentucky
Networking/Educational Groups
1 Million Cups Louisville
Connecting Things
Creative Mornings
Health Enterprises Network
Louisville Digital Association (LDA)
Louisville Makes Games
Louisville Startup Mentors
Louisville Tech Ladies
MetroStart
National Assoc of Women Business Owners
Network of Entrepreneurial Women
New2Lou
Startup Grind Louisville
Startup Weekend Louisville
Technology Association of Louisville, KY (TALK)
Venture Connectors
Young Professionals Association of Louisville (YPAL)
Other Event Calendars
Greater Louisville Inc event calendar
Louisville tech event calendar
Sources of Early-Stage Funding
Airwing Ventures (Lexington)
Access Ventures (small business loans, equity investments)
Allos Ventures (Cincinnati, Indianapolis)
Bluegrass Angels (group – Lexington)
Boomerang Ventures (Indianapolis)
Cherub Fund (small seed investments in KY startups – Lexington)
Chrysalis Ventures (health care and technology – Louisville)
CincyTech (Cincinnati)
Commonwealth Seed Capital (KY-based companies)
Connetic Ventures (Covington, KY – geographically agnostic)
Crimson Hill (emerging energy technologies)
DS9 Capital (insurance and healthcare tech)
eGateway Capital (Covington, KY)
Elevate Ventures (IN-based companies)
Evermore Investments
Future Labs Capital
Global Equity Ventures (Lexington, angel stage)
Gravity Ventures (Indianapolis, seed-stage fund)
Guerilla VC
H Venture Partners (Cincinnati, OH)
High Alpha Venture Studio (Indianapolis)
IU Ventures (funds startups with direct ties to Indiana University)
Keiretsu Forum Cincinnati
Keyhorse Capital (investment arm of KSTC) (invests in KY-based companies)
KTECH Capital (Northern KY)
KY Angel Investment Tax Credit (info for investors & startups)
LEVO Capital
Lightship Capital (Cincinnati)
Louisville Healthcare CEO Council Aging Innovation Fund
Lunsford Capital
M25 early stage venture capital (Chicago)
Marshall Ventures Fund (Owensboro, KY)
Narwhal Ventures
Neace Ventures (real estate and venture capital)
Outlander Labs (Atlanta: seed-stage investors in tech startups in the SE states)
Poplar Ventures
Purdue Ventures (funding & resources for startups with ties to Purdue University)
Queen City Angels (Cincinnati, OH)
Radicle Capital (social impact investments)
Refinery Ventures (Cincinnati, OH)
Render Capital
RSLP Ventures
SBIR/STTC – federal grants + KY matching
Scalable Ventures (B2B Internet and Mobile Startups – Louisville)
The 6ixth Event
Sheltowee Venture Fund
Slingshot Ventures
Southeast Capital Landscape (sources of capital in the Southeast)
Strike Ventures
Thornton Capital
Unbridled Ventures
VisionTech Angels (Indianapolis)
xCap Angels (Indianapolis)
Web, Software & Hardware Technology Groups
Our friends at LouisvilleTech maintain a comprehensive list of technology groups in Louisville:
Fundraising Process & Valuation
Founder Equity Splits
Startup equity calculator – estimate co-founder split
A framework for splitting equity among co-founders
Investor Pitch Decks
How to tell your story to investors
Pitch Deck basics
How to structure an investor pitch deck
Downloadable pitch deck template (.ppt)
Guy Kawasaki’s 10-slide pitch deck
Term Sheets, Valuation
Decoding the term sheet
A detailed look at term sheet terms
Common term sheet mistakes founders make
A valuation calculator for tech startups
Factors that affect startup valuation
Boosting valuation for a pre-revenue startup
Capitalization Tables
A cap table walk-thru of scenarios for preferred, participating preferred, stock options
How to represent convertible debt on a cap table
A sample cap table and payout waterfall model
Stock Options
A guide to employee stock options
Miscellaneous Resources
A visual guide to venture capital financing
Y Combinator’s Series A due diligence checklist
An equity investment & dilution simulator
A guide to raising a seed round
Angel Capital Assoc webinars
30 questions investors ask during fundraising
Legal Advice & Fundraising Documents
500 Startups’ KISS fundraising documents – debt & equity
Founders Workbench – free legal documents
NVCA model legal documents
Series Seed fundraising documents
Startup Company Lawyer
techstars’ open-source seed financing documents
Tech Startup Lawyer
Y Combinator’s fundraising documents – SAFE equity, Series AA, sales agreement
Marketing & Sales
57 ultimate guides for online marketing
95 ways to find your first customers
A beginner’s guide to conversion rate optimization
A beginner’s guide to public relations
A beginner’s guide to search engine optimization
A guide to giving product demos
B2B cold-calling tips
Critical factors for sales follow-up success
How to create a customer acquisition plan
Optimizing landing pages for ad & social campaigns
Sales scripts & templates for emails, demos, phone calls
The ultimate guide to sales funnel optimization
SEO for Startups
Using sales development reps to qualify marketing leads
Performance Metrics
A beginner’s guide to Pirate Metrics
How a high Customer Acquisition Cost kills startups
Performance metrics for SaaS inside sales teams
Performance metrics for Software-as-a-Service businesses
SaaS Metrics 2.0
The 10 most important financial metrics for a startup
Advanced SaaS performance metrics
Minimum Viable Products
MVPs should do 1 thing – reduce risk by testing assumptions
What type of MVP should you be building? 5 phases of risk reduction
MVP as a risk-reduction process
The MVP paradox: MVPs are customer-driven, not product-driven
Signs that you aren’t really building an MVP
Steve Blank on getting the MVP right
The two distinct types of MVP
The ultimate guide to building MVPs
What type of MVP is right for your startup?