FTF/TIC Anniversary Party Action Shots

One decade, two decades. A long time for any venture, much less two that were both sort of an afterthought to bigger plans.

FTF started in 1996 as a way to get fellow tortured souls together to discuss the joys of the hell known as entrepreneurship. The bait was free beer and chips. It worked.

TIC (Technology Innovation Center) started as a minor, not-for-profit portion of a huge Research Park project designed to alter the landscape of Evanston and the Midwest. Well, that Research Park is now a Hilton Garden Inn, a Borders, a Chili's, etc. and TIC aka The Incubator is still kicking twenty years later. It has won numerous awards for excellence, housed over 300 companies, and built relationships with Japan and others to teach them how to do this odd thing call entrepreneurship. Happy Birthday TIC and FTF!







The two poster designs I put together for the event are seen in action above.





Ann Reed (IBIO Institute) and John Conrad (IBIO) discover and utilize the free beer.



Mark Achler (serial successful entrepreneur), Thomas Parkinson (Peapod co-founder), and Dennis Director (found Apollo 17 moon rocket when it got lost) still trying to figure out if Mark or Dennis was the first TIC tenant.



The party was held at First Bank and Trust in Evanston, because they too were once a small startup in the Incubator. Who woulda thunk it ten years ago? Our party in a bank. Soo many suits.

FTF 10th Anniversary Poster, Really

Today's the day and I finally finished the commemorative poster for the FTF/TIC anniversary party tonight. The thumbnail above reflectives the current thinking re the poster, but I was off on another tear for awhile. A whole 2001: A Space Odyessy Incubator logo as monolith concept. I like this one better.



And here is the final piece. I'm getting it printed in the Banner section at Kinko's. They're nice enough and the other banners look great. So here goes...

FTF Celebrates 10 Years!

I designed these two posters for a pretty big event in coming up. It is a double celebration - the twentieth anniversary of the Technology Innovation Center, one of the country's leading incubators for tech startups AND the freakin' TENTH anniversary of FTF (Face To Face). The annual parties for FTF have grown to be very well attended by current incubator tenants, TIC alumni, and curious bystanders.

Pretty amazing for an incubator that was told over and over that it should not, could not, and would not exist by various parties of varying degrees of ignorance. As for FTF, it started as a few fledgling companies coming up for air and sharing a few beers and chips at the end of another endless work week. A decade later we're celebrating that willingness to share and build a community among seeming competitors.

As a founder of FTF, I would personally like to thank co-founder Larry Mills-Gahl, Jim Currie, Dennis Director, Charles Smith, Rob Jacobi, Andrea Winship, Louise Burton, and Tim Lavengood for their faith, hard work, time and money over the last decade. I believe it was worth it. Thanks to the brave souls who showed up at our small, dingy joint for around 500 FTF parties, big and small. Some of you have created companies like Google and Peapod or invented the Skip Doctor or were successful enough to become venture capitalists yourself, while others have seen the harsh, brutish side of entrepreneurship. I salute all of you.

And thanks to Dan Kelch of Lulu's for all the great food.