accidental entrepreneurs

1
May 4-10, 2012 St. Louis Business Journal 31 stlouis.bizjournals.com THE PULSE www.stlouis.bizjournals.com/stlouis/poll You said: THIS WEEK’S PULSE QUESTION: Who should Mitt Romney pick as his running mate? Go to stlouis.bizjournals.com We asked: How far will the Blues go in the NHL playoffs? 893 people voted in this poll. They’ve gone as far as they can go. 15% Conference Champions 27% Stanley Cup Champions 43% They’ll win the conference semifinal. 15% “Objectively they already had a hard time with the Kings. The Kings beat the Presidents’ Trophy winner, and the way they handled us in game one makes me think they are a team of destiny.” “GO AHEAD, make me drink cham- pagne from a BLUES coffee cup, and get all my fan clothes out of the closet...” For more comments, visit www.stlouis.bizjournals.com/stlouis/poll Accidental entrepreneurs Brian and Carol Matthews are accidental entrepreneurs. In fact, it was the games they played that led to their serial suc- cesses and the creation of Cultiva- tion Capital, a new venture capital fund for early stage tech firms, ac- cording to this week’s Page One story by Amir Kurtovic. The Matthews met at McDon- nell Douglas where he was an en- gineer and she was a software de- veloper. The game was fantasy baseball and they played with aerospace workers across the nation. Dis- gruntlement with the algorithm used to calculate results led the Matthews to form a league of their own. (Remember this was 1991 when most of us didn’t know how to spell algorithm, much less write one.) Three years later CDM (CBC Distribution and Marketing), the company they created with Char- lie Wiegert was in such demand, all three quit their day jobs. Fantasy sports lead to Primary Network, an early Internet provid- er in the St. Louis region. Compa- nies were sold and bought back. Not everything the Matthews touched turned to gold. Minor league sports teams and the St. Charles Family Arena did not turn out to be best field to showcase their investments. What you don’t see in the Mat- thews’ story is a lot of whining about the lack of resources in the region or the omnipresence of bu- reaucratic efforts to support entre- preneurs. These are two extremely bright people who saw opportuni- ty through the lens of their tal- ents. Now they’re joining with others to afford more companies the same chance. We’ve focused on investors like the Matthewses in recent months, including Sage Capital, Tom Hill- man and RiverVest. These are great stories to tell. They’re the sa- gas of risk takers who made mon- ey through investing in other risk takers. And they’re willing to do it again and again. After all, the Matthewses may have started in fantasy sports but they’re in the big leagues now. Have a great week. Ellen A CLOSER LOOK THE THINKING PERSON’S GUIDE TO THE BUSINESS JOURNAL Opportunities for: Software developers; Engineers; Fantasy leagues. I can live for two weeks on a good compliment. — Mark Twain

Upload: cultivation-capital

Post on 16-Feb-2017

131 views

Category:

Economy & Finance


0 download

TRANSCRIPT

May 4-10, 2012 St. Louis Business Journal 31stlouis.bizjournals.com

THE PULSEwww.stlouis.bizjournals.com/stlouis/poll

You said:

THIS WEEK’S PULSE QUESTION:

Who should Mitt Romney pick as his running mate?Go to stlouis.bizjournals.com

We asked: How far will the Blues go in the NHL playoffs?

893 people voted in this poll.

They’ve gone as far as they

can go.

15%Conference Champions

27%

Stanley Cup Champions

43%

They’ll win the conference

semifinal.

15%

“Objectively they already had a hard time with the Kings. The Kings beat the Presidents’ Trophy winner, and the way they handled us in game one makes me think they are a team of destiny.”

“GO AHEAD, make me drink cham-pagne from a BLUES coffee cup, and get all my fan clothes out of the closet...”

For more comments, visit www.stlouis.bizjournals.com/stlouis/poll

Accidental entrepreneurs

Brian and Carol Matthews are accidental entrepreneurs.

In fact, it was the games they played that led to their serial suc-cesses and the creation of Cultiva-tion Capital, a new venture capital fund for early stage tech firms, ac-cording to this week’s Page One story by Amir Kurtovic.

The Matthews met at McDon-nell Douglas where he was an en-gineer and she was a software de-veloper.

The game was fantasy baseball and they played with aerospace workers across the nation. Dis-gruntlement with the algorithm used to calculate results led the Matthews to form a league of their own. (Remember this was 1991 when most of us didn’t know how to spell algorithm, much less write one.) Three years later CDM (CBC Distribution and Marketing), the company they created with Char-lie Wiegert was in such demand, all three quit their day jobs.

Fantasy sports lead to Primary Network, an early Internet provid-er in the St. Louis region. Compa-nies were sold and bought back.

Not everything the Matthews touched turned to gold. Minor league sports teams and the St. Charles Family Arena did not turn out to be best field to showcase

their investments. What you don’t see in the Mat-

thews’ story is a lot of whining about the lack of resources in the region or the omnipresence of bu-reaucratic efforts to support entre-preneurs. These are two extremely bright people who saw opportuni-ty through the lens of their tal-ents. Now they’re joining with others to afford more companies the same chance.

We’ve focused on investors like the Matthewses in recent months, including Sage Capital, Tom Hill-man and RiverVest. These are great stories to tell. They’re the sa-gas of risk takers who made mon-ey through investing in other risk takers. And they’re willing to do it again and again.

After all, the Matthewses may have started in fantasy sports but they’re in the big leagues now.

Have a great week.Ellen

A CLOSERLOOKTHE THINKING PERSON’S GUIDE TO THE BUSINESS JOURNAL

Opportunities for:Software developers;Engineers;Fantasy leagues.

I can live for two weeks on a good compliment. — Mark Twain