Jay Cooper

two men eating ribs in front of a truck that says chicago bears ALT: two men eating ribs in front of a truck that says chicago bears

I’ve seen those guys before.

The Valley of Death You know what the scariest thing is for early-stage startups?

Check out the latest article on We Are All EntrePartners: The Valley of Death

iowaentrepartners.substack.com/p/the-valley...

Visiting Hotel California When travel opened back up in 2021 and I had the chance to facilitate a Startup Weekend in San Antonio that June, I made a new goal for myself and my personal development: facilitate at least one Star...

Check out the latest article on We Are All EntrePartners: Visiting Hotel California

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It Just Takes One Cup Over my decade of experience in the eastern Iowa startup community, I’ve helped programs start from scratch, as well as helped lead others from good to great.

Check out the latest article on We Are All EntrePartners: It Just Takes One Cup

iowaentrepartners.substack.com/p/it-just-ta...

An Event So Nice, I Led It Twice After facilitating my first Startup Weekend event in Rockford, Illinois, in January 2020, I was ready to get out there and travel the country.

Check out the latest article on We Are All EntrePartners: An Event So Nice, I Led It Twice

iowaentrepartners.substack.com/p/an-event-s...

Most Founders Shouldn’t Be CEOs One of the first things we say during a Startup Weekend event is that nobody on the team is the CEO.

Check out the latest article on We Are All EntrePartners: Most Founders Shouldn’t Be CEOs

iowaentrepartners.substack.com/p/most-found...

The Storm Before the Storm After successfully organizing Startup Weekend Iowa City in 2018 and 2019, I was ready for my next challenge: facilitating Startup Weekend events across the United States.

Check out the latest article on We Are All EntrePartners: The Storm Before the Storm

iowaentrepartners.substack.com/p/the-storm-...

Free Money One of the major reasons startups fail is lack of funding.

Check out the latest article on We Are All EntrePartners: Free Money

iowaentrepartners.substack.com/p/free-money

Golf carting.

My latest blog post: Turns Out Giving First Has Its Limits
jaycooper-media.com/blog/?p=1678

Muscatine.

Check Your Personal KPIs Most business owners have heard of KPIs – Key Performance Indicators – in the context of your business.

Check out the latest article on We Are All EntrePartners: Check Your Personal KPIs

iowaentrepartners.substack.com/p/check-your...

Back in the office today. Videos rendering overnight. Finally making some forward progress on a bunch of different things.

Rooftop.

Spending some time this week in Kansas City.

Today’s the finale of #swic25 - join us at 4 pm for final pitches! Follow the signs up from the Ped Mall to the EntrePartners Innovation Center and join the fun!

Half-Baked.

There’s Always Room to Pivot Entrepreneurs walk a fine line between decisiveness and stubbornness.

Check out the latest article on We Are All EntrePartners: There's Always Room to Pivot

iowaentrepartners.substack.com/p/theres-alw...

Startup Weekend: Now More Than Ever I’ve been a major proponent of Startup Weekend since I participated in my first event back in November 2015.

Check out the latest article on We Are All EntrePartners: Startup Weekend: Now More Than Ever

iowaentrepartners.substack.com/p/startup-we...

Startup Weekend Iowa City 2025 Meet the very best mentors, investors, co-founders and sponsors to show you how to get more done faster over an action-packed 3 days!

We're just two weeks away from this year's Startup Weekend Iowa City! Join us July 11-13 at MERGE for a weekend of problem-solving and team building! Grab your ticket today at swic.rocks and let’s build something amazing!

Customer Discovery is Not Supposed to be Torture We all know that the best way to find out what people want is by talking with them.

Check out the latest article on We Are All EntrePartners: Customer Discovery is Not Supposed to be Torture

iowaentrepartners.substack.com/p/customer-d...

That’s exactly what I say each morning. 🤣

Review: Global Entrepreneurship Congress Indiana 2025 From Sunday afternoon to Friday afternoon last week, I had the pleasure of traveling to and from Indianapolis for this year’s Global Entrepreneurship Congress, the first time this event has made it ba...

Check out the latest article on We Are All EntrePartners: Review: Global Entrepreneurship Congress Indiana 2025 #GEC2025

iowaentrepartners.substack.com/p/review-glo...

We Are All EntrePartners | Jay Cooper | Substack Tips, tricks, and a bit of advice to get your entrepreneurial neurons firing. Click to read We Are All EntrePartners, by Jay Cooper, a Substack publication. Launched 3 months ago.

#GEC2025 might be a wrap, but the ideas are still flowing. I’ll be covering my experience at the Congress this coming Monday in the We Are All EntrePartners Substack. Subscribe now and enjoy the article when it lands!

iowaentrepartners.substack.com

a man floating on a raft in the ocean says " i 'm sorry rum ham " ALT: a man floating on a raft in the ocean says " i 'm sorry rum ham "

How does it stack up against rum ham?

Will I see you at #GEC2025 next week? The schedule is live and I’ve already picked out some amazing sessions to attend. Let’s connect (or reconnect) in Indianapolis next week!

One Year Putting Theory Into Practice Do you ever get the feeling that you’ve accomplished so much but just barely scratched the surface of a project? That’s how I feel after one year building the EntrePartners Innovation Center. I loo…

My latest blog post: One Year Putting Theory Into Practice jaycooper-media.com/blog/?p=1665

The Entrepreneurship of Cider The Great Lakes International Cider and Perry Competition, or GLINTCAP, took place last week in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Check out the latest article on We Are All EntrePartners: The Entrepreneurship of Cider iowaentrepartners.substack.com/p/the-entrep...

The Hindrance of Silos My entire career, even before entering the world of entrepreneurial ecosystems, has focused on getting different entities to talk with and work together with one another.

Check out the latest article on We Are All EntrePartners: The Hindrance of Silos iowaentrepartners.substack.com/p/the-hindra...

All muskmelons are goodmelons.