Steve Subar launched and grew Open Kernel Labs from within Chicago's TechNexus incubator over the past five years, becoming only the second of what has now been more than 170 young companies to grow in the ecosystem. While growing at TechNexus, Steve led OK Labs to more than 50 employees, through millions of dollars in capital raises, and now to a successful exit to General Dynamics (NYSE: GD), a $32 billion aerospace and defense company.
Forbes is out with their list of Top Incubators and Accelerators in America, and it includes TechNexus. When we opened this facility five years ago, we did everything we could to avoid being called an incubator. The...
Am I getting too old for this entrepreneur’s game, maybe too cynical? Has my risk tolerance receded with my hairline? Have I become a midlife cliché after 25 years of being the youngest, most impassioned guy in the room?
Screw all that. Everything is prelude. I’ve built some good organizations, but there’s still a really great company (or two or three) in me. I’ve know...
If you think the next generation of start-up founders will hail from Stanford, Harvard, or some other university cranking out MBAs, you might want to expand your thinking. There’s a 3-year-old inner-city high school in Chicago—filled mostly with poor African American youth—grooming students who know how to think, act, and speak like entrepreneurs....