Most startup events are optimized for polish. Slide decks. Buzzwords. Perfectly rehearsed pitches. It doesn’t feel real nor authentic.
What’s Your Business Idea? was built for something else entirely: Community & Connection.
Founders who are still early, still figuring it out, and brave enough to say it out loud.
In this article, we will share how a simple, open-source experiment has helped surface and support dozens of founders in both Pittsburgh and Birmingham.
Where it Started
I first ran What’s Your Business Idea? in the fall of 2017 while leading the UAB Commercialization Accelerator in Birmingham, Alabama.
At the time, the startup community was early and fragmented. There were talented people everywhere, but many were invisible to one another. I kept wondering on how to get talented entrepreneurs out of the woodwork.
The initial idea for the program started with a thought: What if we did something like the Kauffman Foundation’s 1 Million Cups (1MC), but made it more accessible to founders who are at the idea/prototype stage?
The program worked wonderfully in Birmingham to engage students, faculty, and staff at UAB along with aspiring entrepreneurs and seasoned founders across the city. We then built out connections to local coworking spaces, incubators, accelerators, and Entrepreneurial Support Organizations (ESOs) to quarterback and guide founders to the next resource/introduction that they needed in the local community.
Bringing it to Pittsburgh
In the fall of 2023, after moving back to Pittsburgh, I grabbed coffee with Charles Mansfield III of InnovatePGH and shared the idea of running What’s Your Business Idea?
Charles was in and we decided to run a 3-event pilot.
In the pilot, we had 15 founders pitch and a number of people in attendance asked, “When is the next one?”
We decided to run it again for another 3 batches. Then another 3. And so on.
Since then, we’ve run the event 18 times in Pittsburgh and have had 88 local founders pitch (and counting!)
What is What’s Your Business Idea?
What’s Your Business Idea? is simple by design. Here are the key details:
- What’s Your Business Idea? is a roughly 1-hour event where we invite founders to share what they are working on through an informal 1-2 minute elevator pitch without slides.
- After each founder shares, we open the floor to the audience to do a few things: ask questions, give feedback, and make connections.
- We go through this process for however many founders expressed interest in sharing upfront (usually via email in advance or day-of when they arrive).
- After that, we open the floor again for Walk-Ons. These are founders who attended not planning to pitch, but are now inspired to share. Don’t skip this step. We’ve had as many as 5 walk-ons at an event.
- At the end of the event, we’ll ask each founder what specific support they need and open the room up for general networking with those support asks top-of-mind.
- What’s Your Business Idea? at its core is about Community Building. Most of the time that we ran this event, we’ve invited everyone in attendance out to an informal dinner after at a local restaurant. We’ve had dinner groups ranging from small groups of 4 people to over a dozen folks.
- After each event, we follow up with the founders directly to offer support, make introductions, and connect the founders with relevant local resources they are searching for (we call this quarterbacking).
Running What’s Your Business Idea?
Ground Rules
- This event is founder-first and about community building, this is not the place for you to pitch your services or try to conduct business development. If you plan to use this for sales (either as a host or attendee), please do us a favor and do not attend.
- When giving feedback to founders (particularly when it is constructive), embody this Mr. Rogers quote: “There are three ways to ultimate success: The first way is to be kind. The second way is to be kind. The third way is to be kind.” This does not mean to avoid sharing a sharp take, but rather to not be a jerk about it.
- This event is free. Never charge for it.
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When a founder asks for help, do your best to support them.
- Pre-Event: It was not uncommon for a founder to reach out in advance asking for guidance on how to structure their elevator pitch. Please feel free to share this resource as a guide: The Pitch for Elevator Pitches
- Post-Event: Introductions/Connections to Local Resources, Talent, Early Customers, etc.
Pre-Event
Below is your Pre-Event checklist. If you have any questions or would like to see examples, please do not hesitate to email me directly at max@theceostrategy.com.
- Identify a Location, Date, Time. If in Pittsburgh, Check Charles’ Local Startup Events Calendar to avoid conflicts
- Create an Event Page via Eventbrite or Luma at least 6 weeks in advance
- Start marketing your event
- Send logistics emails to attendees 1-week before, the Monday before, and the day-of. These should include a reminder of the date/time/location of the event, details for parking, an ask for founders to share if they are interested in pitching, and other important information
During Event
Below is your During Event checklist:
- Have the doors open 30 minutes early. We would run the event at 6PM and be on-site with the doors open by 5:30PM
- Welcome people as they arrive, ask how they heard of the event, ask if they’d like to pitch, get them settled in
- Begin the event formally 10-15 minutes past the start time (again this was around 6:15PM for us)
- Do quick introductions for the host, the venue, and get the program started. This should be no more than 1-2 minutes.
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Talking Point Drafts for the Event:
- Thank you for coming out!
- Ask the founders what support they need
- If in Pittsburgh, share other upcoming startup events
- Share that everyone will be getting a follow-up email with resources
- You are now part of the What’s Your Business Idea? Community. Don’t hesitate to reach out to us for support, resources, intros. Don’t go at it alone as an entrepreneur.
- Open the floor up for general networking and then gather those interested for dinner after
- Welcome!
- Introductions
- Goal is to get entrepreneurs connected to one another and the greater ecosystem
- Dinner after optional
- X founders slated to pitch with a walk-on option.
- 1-2 minute elevator pitch / 3 questions / next
- Welcome the first founder, turn it over to the audience for questions, rinse and repeat for scheduled founders and then do again for walk-ons
- Closing Remarks
- Also, don’t forget to take photos of the founders pitching. This is great to share with them directly after along with in a post-event LinkedIn post.
Post-Event
Below is your Post-Event checklist:
- Send a wrap-up email to the attendee list to highlight the founders who pitched, share local resources, and plug future startup community events in Pittsburgh.
- Publish a LinkedIn post to highlight the event, founders who pitched, and plug future startup community events in Pittsburgh (see an example here).
Why are we Open Sourcing What’s Your Business Idea?
What’s Your Business idea? has been exceptional at hitting home Community & Connection in two different cities.
In Birmingham, running this event series gave opportunities for founders to find support, early hires, first customers, and angel investors. This event also served as a front door to quarterback these founders to relevant resources whether that be Innovation Depot, the local SBDC office, accelerator programming, and more.
In Pittsburgh, this event series has done the same with connecting founders together for community support and to incredible local resources like Ascender, PGH Labs, Innovation Works, Duquesne SBDC, Pitt SBDC, and more.
What we are hoping that open sourcing will allow us to do is also have this event series hit a point of scale. We have 5 confirmed community leaders who are volunteering to run at least one What’s Your Business Idea? event in Pittsburgh during 2026.
We hope that other leaders will experiment with this format for their organization, their city, and their startup community.
A Call to Action For You
If you read this and feel called to run a What’s Your Business Idea? in your community, do it. This guide should give you everything you need, but please do not hesitate to reach out to me directly with questions.