It’s time that we get together to share our journey
and motivate & inspire others
to take action to live their best life!
More Events Coming Fall 2023!
Come listen to unique stories,
get an opportunity to ask questions
and meet & network with like-minded people.
CLASSES & EVENTS
GET STARTED ON YOUR DREAM
WITH CLASSES AND EVENTS TO ENHANCE YOUR SKILLS!
CLASSES
BUSINESS PLAN COURSE
Starting a business is one of life’s most exciting times. Yet, it is also one of the most stressful times that you will face. Today, more and more people are starting their own business and taking part of the new entrepreneurial movement to become independent, self-reliant, financially successful, and most of all, to improve their quality of life.
IKANSTART has 20+ years experience writing and teaching business plans. This four-week course will guide you through every phase of your business development and help you create clear guidelines, goals to attain and help you craft your business plan’s purpose, startup-cost plan, marketing plan, financial plan, and more.
DESIGN THINKING COURSE
Everyone is born as a creative being. Don’t believe it? Talk to any 4 or 5 year-old child; ask them to solve something for you. It’s impossible not to be amazed by their vivid imagination and creativity. Yet, somewhere between elementary and high school, the educational system seems to destroy children’s creative confidence and strictly focus on analytical thinking or things that we know for sure (like Math, English, etc.).
IKANSTART will show you how to rediscover your creativity, teach you strategies to find creative solutions to problems and use empathy for the consumer when making decisions. At the heart of this four-week course is to teach participants how to build on each other’s ideas to solve problems that normally one person alone cannot unravel.
LEAN LAUNCH & BUSINESS MODEL CANVAS COURSE
This is a real-world, hands-on learning opportunity that will help you test your ideas and innovations before ever risking and wasting valuable time, resources and money. You will learn how to use the Business Model Canvas, gather customer feedback, use responsive (agile) product development and pivot to create a successful product or service.
IKANSTART will show you how to brainstorm using the Business Model Canvas, talk to potential customers, partners and competitors to test your assumptions, and rapidly pivot based on customer feedback to build a new or better product or service.
EVENTS
The past few years have been hard on everyone. With so many uncertainties, live events have been postponed, but we are starting some smaller events in the very near future and provide networking opportunities for you to engage in and connect with like-minded people.
My F*ups
The thing that most often keeps us all up at night is the thought of failing and the shaming that is associated with failure. But, nothing great in history was ever achieved without failure! It’s one of the key ingredients for success.
Many of the F*ups that we face are often repeated and can be avoided if those before us would have the courage to share their failures.
IKANSTART thinks it’s time that we get together and share our F*ups openly to help each other understand what went wrong and how to avoid mistakes when possible. But more importantly, it’s time to show people that F*ups are not fatal but part of every great success story.
Come listen to unique speakers and stories, get an opportunity to ask questions and meet & network with like-minded people.
Network Afterhours
IKANSTART organizes Network Afterhours to provide individuals an opportunity to meet and network with like-minded professionals, entrepreneurs and business people over a drink in a casual environment and learn something new at each event from experts.
The Great Pitch
IKANSTART created The Great Pitch Idea Competition to give budding entrepreneurs and innovators an opportunity to answer a crucial piece of the startup puzzle: WILL WE HAVE CUSTOMERS? Because without customers, nothing else matters, no matter how well you execute every other aspect of your business.
Over a decade ago, IKANSTART’s founder, Dushan Nikolovski, wanted to change the startup process because of his own startup pitfalls that he could have avoided with some simple strategies. He discovered that there is nothing more important than getting the immediate feedback from potential customers. This strategy allows entrepreneurs and innovators to determine if they have a viable product/service that customers want or if they need to re-evaluate their offering, pivot and reintroduce to customers.
In 2011, Dushan Nikolovski implemented an idea competition in the Chicagoland area, and it became an instant national hit, helping startups get immediate feedback and make their way to the marketplace. However, the new competition, the Great Pitch, brings not only audience participation but also expert advice from several different sources to help mentor startups. In the first round, competitors get two minutes to pitch their ideas and only audience members vote to determine which ideas move forward to the final round. Finalists will then pitch their ideas to an expert panel of judges and again to the audience will have a deciding vote in selecting the winners. Thus, hundreds of people will be providing competitors immediate feedback which would normally take months or years to gather.
WORKSHOPS
IKANSTART
will host a variety of one-day workshops throughout the year. The most popular classes are listed below.
Design Thinking Workshop
Two-hour workshop to help you learn the Design Thinking process and how to find creative solutions to problems using empathy for others. You will learn how to build on each other’s ideas to solve problems that normally one person alone cannot unravel.
Intellectual Property Workshop
As a business person, it is important to have a working knowledge of how Intellectual Property (IP) protects the various parts of your business.
An IP attorney will help cover and answer questions regarding your business name, products, services, and discuss technical and creative works that are usually protected by one or more forms of IP; like patents, trademarks, copyrights, etc.
Digital Marketing Workshop
Everyone knows that it is crucial today to have a digital presents. This workshops will help you learn how to promote your business and connect with potential customers using emails, various social media, web-based advertising, and even text messages.
What’s My First Step Workshop
Most people sit on their ideas! They don’t know where to begin because having an idea means nothing if you don’t have the right steps start. Two-hour workshop will help learn how to test your idea, the market and steps to start.
Crowdfunding Workshop
Once you have tested your idea and are ready to start, you will need funding!
Learn the various crowdfunding platforms, marketing strategies, key legal concepts and best practices needed to run a successful crowdfunding campaign when starting and growing business.
Business Plan Workshop
You learn all the parts that makeup a business plan and the essential steps necessary: mission and vision statement, goals and objects, identifying your customers, marketing and sales plan, startup projections, financial plan, etc.
These are the necessary first steps in launching your business and starting your entrepreneurial journey.
