MESA is pleased to welcome Kent Lillemoe as the newest member of our mentor team. Kent is currently Chief Financial Officer at Field Nation; a solution that connects businesses and contingent workers.  Previous successful technology companies that Kent has been involved with include MinuteClinic and Fargo Electronics. To learn more [...]

The Star Tribune recently published an excellent article about the progress and success of the MESA portfolio company, AstroHQ (Read Here).  Founders Matt Ronge and Giovanni Donelli are doing a wonderful job, and their story is a testament to the power of a collaborative mentoring relationship.  Nicely done team!

Minnesota Emerging Software Advisory — aka MESA –is rolling out ‘Seed’ to augment their C-level mentorship model with a new pathway for local tech startups seeking guidance from others who may have been there before.  Continue reading

After an initial period of time as a MESA "Seed" start-up, we are pleased to announce Token of Trust as our newest portfolio member.  Join us in welcoming Darrin Edelman, Chief Executive Officer, to the team.  Learn more about Token of Trust

After 2 full years of imagination and development, early customer incubation, beta releases, and now more than 20 customers that are helping us prove out our idea for a comprehensive customer community platform and the value within... we are announcing our company to the world. It's time to #WorkOutLoud #CustomerCommunities http://www.workoutloud.com/press-releases

MESA welcomes John Moroney, Principal - Acumen Management Group, Joe Blauert - Chief Executive Officer, ProcessPro Software, and Troy Thibodeau - Chief Marketing Officer, Sovos Compliance to our most excellent team of Mentors.  They are already engaged and lending their expertise to our portfolio of companies.  Check out their biographies [...]

Google Demo Day winner Player's Health is the newest Minnesota start-up to become a MESA portfolio software company.  CEO Tyrre Burks is off to a great start, and MESA is looking forward to coming along side him to become Minnesota's next great success story.  We are pleased to welcome Tyrre [...]

Astro HQ, creators of Astropad, is the most recent start-up to join the MESA portfolio of software companies.  Winner of the 2015 Minnesota Cup, CEO Matt Ronge and the team are an excellent fit for the Mentoring capabilities MESA has to offer.  We are pleased to welcome Matt to the [...]

Chad Halvorson, founder and Chief Executive Officer of thisCLICKS recently closed a $4 million round of Venture Capital.  "Big thanks to MESA (John Tedesco and Jeff Fritz) for helping me navigate the company to this point. A BIG help!"  Here's the full story: Business Journal

MESA recently celebrated the graduation of two of our portfolio companies at our semi-annual reception September 26th.  BIG CONGRATULATIONS go out to Lief Larson, CEO of Workface, and Scott Davis, CEO of QONQR!  Lief and Scott both had phenomenal stories to share with their colleagues in attendance, and both worked [...]

Must reading for any software entrepreneur: http://www.forbes.com/sites/georgedeeb/2013/09/18/the-unlucky-13-reasons-startups-fail/#!

MESA applauds the achievements of member companies Kidblog and When I Work for winning their respective divisions of the Minnesota Cup. Led by entrepreneurs Dan Flies and Matt Hardy, Kidblog was the recipient of the first place prize in the General Division, while start-up veteran Chad Halvorson led When I [...]

Martin Leestma is the Chairman of the Board of Directors and CEO at Forthright Solutions. Marty brings nearly 30 years of top-level strategic business experience to Forthright. His career has focused on large-scale transformation initiatives with various companies and he has deep experience and expertise across the value creation life [...]

No Man’s Land by Doug Tatum.  Contains a great outline and description of the inflection points small companies struggle through in their growth trajectory (or not). Traction by Gino Wickman.  Defines the "Entrepreneurial Operating System (EOS)" - a practical method for entrepreneurs to simplify their business down to 6 key [...]

The Minnesota Emerging Software Advisory (MESA) honored Matt Quinn recently at a reception as the first graduate from our program. From Matt Quinn, EmergingSoft CEO: EmergingSoft has benefited greatly from the mentorship, practical business guidance and accountability provided to our organization over the past two years with MESA. We are [...]

MESA is pleased to announce the addition of John Tedesco to an already stellar team of Mentors. John is an entrepreneur, chief executive and company director with 15 years’ experience building and running venture-backed technology businesses.  He is the founder of three SaaS companies providing information services, financial services and [...]

We are pleased to be partnering with Robert Befidi as the newest member of our mentorship team. Robert has more than 15 years of domestic and international experience in a diverse set of industries.  He has been involved with companies that range from early stage startups to some of the [...]

Clinical Healthcare has made steady progress in their quest to transform how physicians practice the "Art of Medicine".  Lead by a strong management team of Arnel Rillo and Tom Tack, they have advanced to a stage where they are ready to embrace the guidance and advice of the MESA team [...]

The MESA program sounded like a great addition to the circle of advice that we had already been listening to, both paid and unpaid. What we experienced was a unique kind of counselling that demanded from us more than a friend or a paid adviser might be able to. The format that [...]

Please join us in welcoming Jeff Fritz as the newest distinguished MESA Mentor! As the innovation-centric Chief Executive Officer of Storyworks OnDemand, Jeff Fritz is focused on the successful commercialization of disruptive ideas – typically fueled by technology.  Jeff believes that improving the way the community accesses, shares and uses [...]