Jon Eckhardt
Interest: Finance Information Technology Angel Funding IPOs Venture Capital Research Methods Teaching Methods Valuation Technology Commercialization Internet Business Models Investors Entrepreneurship
Industry: Telecommunications & Internet Banking, Finance, Insurance Professional, Scientific, Technical Services Information, Software, Data Health Care & Biotech
Interviewee:
Authored Resources
Should I Participate in a Business Accelerator?
973106 viewsEven some experienced entrepreneurs don't understand how business accelerators operate and what they can do.
Gimme Shelter: ABODO's Slocum Talks About his Apartment-Hunting Breakthrough
4366 views Alec Slocum started his smartphone-based apartment-hunting service, ABODO, after being frustrated in his own search for shelter. He sat down recently with Jon Eckhardt to talk about how he
How Eric Martell Cooked up a 'Digital Food Court'
9401 views Eric Martell co-founded EatStreet as a 19-year-old to create a "digital food court" and online ordering for mom-and-pop restaurants serving hungry college students. His startup has now grown
The Odyssey of Isomark's Life-Saving Technology
3216 views Joe Kremer's company, Isomark, provides life-saving technology that can detect potentially deadly illnesses early through a simple breath test. In this interview Kremer talks about how Isomark
How Matt Younkle Changed Music Collecting
4016 viewsVinyl, CDs or cloud? Meet the entrepreneur behind the service that helps music collectors have it all.
The Art of Entrepreneurship, from Toni Sikes of CODAworx
25172 viewsIn her years as an entrepreneur, Toni Sikes has focused on helping artists find people who will pay for their work. Here's her advice for new entrepreneurs.
Connecting Business Research to Practice
20107 viewsMarkets are a strong mechanism that force entrepreneurs to produce outputs that are useful to customers. Ironically and sadly, schools that groom future entrepreneurs too often don’t consider
For the Best Customer Data, Look Beyond the Market
62907 viewsHobbyists and passionate "early adopters" often point the way to potential commercial successes.
Research Insight: Proven Entrepreneurs May Benefit Less from Partnering With Experienced VCs
28189 viewsLike the football execs who try to pick future Super Bowl standouts, VCs often take a chance on businesses led by unproven entrepreneurs. It takes experience to spot the diamond in the rough.
T-Shirt Project Teaches Customer Discovery to Future Entrepreneurs
4667 viewsMany entrepreneurship professors want to provide students with applied learning experiences. Yet, implementing an applied project in a large, introductory entrepreneurship course can be a challenge.
Technical Specialized Knowledge and Founder Leadership at Initial Public Offering
20820 viewsFounders have staying power when they have deep knowledge that is important to their company’s commercial success but hard to share with others.
An Interview with David Teece, a Practicing Business Intellectual
18202 viewsProfessor David Teece is one of the impactful business scholars of his generation. His research has been cited over 128,474 times according to Google Scholar. His work is required reading for Ph.D.
James Wetherbe: How Consulting Connects Colleges to the Real World
14181 viewsAcademics can make their research more meaningful and useful by engaging with businesses and their real-world problems.
Driving Impactful Research: A Conversation with Charles Dhanaraj
9405 viewsCharles Dhanaraj is the Executive Director of the Translational Research Center at Temple University’s Fox School of Business and the H. F. Lenfest Professor of Strategy. He is an expert in
Producing Research Entrepreneurs Can Use
6798 viewsEntrepreneurs often perceive a gap between research conducted in academia, and the practical problems that they face when building companies.
Technology Tools for Working or Teaching Remotely
5590 viewsWhile many entrepreneurs and teachers prefer being in the same room, working effectively online can save the day (or the semester) during a crisis.
Rob Roquitte of eCIO: Growing a business during a crisis
38481 views In this video, Jon Eckhardt interviews Rob Roquitte about building his pre-seed stage company that he started before the COVID-19 pandemic. Roquitte's company, eCIO , helps nonprofit
Past e-Fest Winners Continue Innovating
17182 viewsParticipating in e-Fest gave undergraduate innovators not only capital for their businesses, but also connections, confidence and valuable experience. We caught up with teams from 2019 and 2022.
Paychex Founder Tom Golisano's Advice for Innovators
25875 viewsThe founder of the $4 billion payroll processing company talks with us about challenging conventional wisdom, complimenting competitors, the pitfalls of sharing equity and what he looks for as an investor.
Timeless Lessons from Dick Schulze
26331 viewsThe founder of Best Buy (and EIX and FamilyBusiness.org) has always had a passion for helping business owners succeed. He lives by these rules.
Learn From Leaders: Developing an Idea
419024 viewsThe founders and CEOS of Best Buy, Minute Clinic, LegalZoom and other successful companies share their advice for early-stage entrepreneurs in our exclusive video series.
Learn from Leaders #2: Getting the Financing Your Venture Needs to Survive
44957 viewsIn Part 2 of our exclusive video series, celebrated entrepreneurs discuss how they convinced early investors and lenders to take a chance on them.
Learn From Leaders #3: Advisors and Mentors
41362 viewsMentors and carefully chosen advisors can help founders make sound decisions. Watch and learn how these advocates helped shape MinuteClinic, LegalZoom and other firms.
Learn from Leaders #4: Building a Team
25898 viewsAs part of our exclusive video series, leaders of celebrated companies discuss how to attract and incentivize your startup team, and how those teams can evolve as the company matures.
Learn from Leaders #5: Growing the Business
27742 viewsOnce you've established a new company, how do you get it to the next level? Founders of celebrated companies share their experiences in our exclusive video series.
Learn From Leaders: Famous Founders' Best Advice for New Ventures
15619 viewsThese five exclusive videos focus on the critical steps in launching a company: developing an idea, getting financing, advisors and mentors, building a team and growing the business.
We Talk with Wes Schroll, CEO of Fetch Rewards, Softbank's latest Unicorn
55146 viewsThis interview is a preview of EIX's upcoming customer development series, a series of interviews with entrepreneurs building technology companies who share insights on customer discovery and customer development.
Software is Eating the Software That's Eating the World
26233 viewsSoftware companies that initially gained traction by reducing complexity are now facing the threat of disruption from startups that reduce complexity even more.
Building a Company Step By Step, Ch. 1: How Startups are Different
84138 viewsOur new feature explores the principles outlined in Steve Blank and Bob Dorf's book,
Building a Company Step by Step, Ch. 2: The Path to the Epiphany
23177 viewsChapter 2 of our series features an interview with Max Fergus of LÜM, an alternative streaming platform that helps emerging musicians connect more authentically with fans.
Building a Company Step By Step Ch. 3: An Introduction to Customer Discovery
49692 viewsWe interview Taralinda Willis of Curate, which gives customers access to information from from public committee meetings, agendas and minutes.
Building a Company Step By Step, Ch. 4: Your Customer Hypothesis
49418 viewsSerial entrepreneur Brian Wiegand, co-founder of six companies, talks about whether founders should be visionaries or managers of uncertainty.
Building a Company Step By Step, Chapter 5: Get Out of the Building
56716 viewsStructure matters when going through the customer discovery process, but startup founder Rachel Carpenter notes that sometimes you just need to wing it.
Building a Company Step by Step, Ch 6: Testing and Pivoting
59428 viewsThis interview with Alex Yampolsky, co-founder and chief operating officer of Vytal Health, focuses on the importance of testing your proposed product or service and knowing when to pivot.
Building a Business Step by Step Ch. 7: Verify the Business Model
72422 viewsThe co-founders of Laquerus turned down lucrative job offers to start a nail salon. Here's how it evolved and what comes next.
Building a Company Step by Step Ch. 11: Product and Company Positioning
72974 viewsCorey Capasso of Urbint talks about his company's evolving role in providing technology to prevent infrastructure disasters.
Building a Company Step by Step, Ch. 8: Introduction to Customer Validation
37635 viewsThis chapter discusses the importance of testing and experimenting to determine how a product or service will be sold, before committing resources towards something that may not work out.
Challenge for 2022: Innovating Despite Uncertainty
9098 viewsOur best-read articles in 2021 overwhelmingly fell into two themes: survival, and bringing a great idea from concept to market.
Building a Company Step By Step Ch. 10: Get Out of the Building and Sell
57209 viewsMadison-based Fetch Rewards, which helps consumers get rewards from their grocery shopping, attracted a $210 million investment.
The Silicon Valley Bank Bust: What Entrepreneurs Need to Know
9774 viewsDon't panic. These eight steps can help entrepreneurs protect their ventures.
What Family Businesses Need to Know About the Silicon Valley Bank Failure
754 viewsThe SVB fallout is affecting other banks and troubling many business owners. These eight steps can help you protect your firm.
EIX's Editorial Guidelines for the Use of Generative AI Tools
23898 viewsYou are welcome to use these tools to help draft, revise, and/or expand on submitted articles -- but make sure you understand our rules.
Remote Work, Financing and AI Were Top-10 Topics in 2023
196427 viewsOur most-read articles in 2023 focused on new challenges such as the rise of remote work and the power and peril of AI -- and age-old ones like access to capital and other resources.
Research-Based Advice for Businesses: Our 10 Best-Read Articles
119349 viewsOver the years we've brought readers practical advice based on research: rigorous studies that analyze what truly works. These ones resonated the most.
Our Mission: Bringing You Research-Based Business Insights
23521 viewsEntrepreneurs and family businesses need practical takeaways supported by academic rigor.
Editors’ Picks
The Startup Owner's Manual
Steve Blank is a former entrepreneur and teacher who invests in startups; Bob Dorf has a background in venture capital. Their book helps entrepreneurs follow a process that will reduce their risks of over-investing in ideas too quickly, and likely improves the odds that entrepreneurs are on the right path by discovering a way to meet the needs of an unknown body of customers in a way that's repeatable. The book’s processes for entrepreneurs are very similar to the scientific process that scholars use to discover make new inventions and new academic discoveries. The book is a must-read for aspiring entrepreneurs.