The entrepreneurial community in Phoenix is extensive—so extensive, in fact, that it can sometimes feel impossible to make meaningful connections. There’s the occasional networking event or mixer, sure, but how do you pick the right people out of a crowd?
Mat Sherman, CEO of the software company Schmooz, may have come up with the perfect solution. He’s named it Connect #yesphx after the Phoenix entrepreneurial community, who uses the hashtag as a “unifying banner” for its accelerators, educators, founders, and more. The goal? To make as many connections as possible between community members based on their experience, goals, skills, and hobbies.
Mat says the idea sprouted from a problem his own company faced during the startup phase. It was easy to find people and businesses who wanted a software like his; however, it was far more difficult to make valuable connections that actually led to a sale. The solution was to focus on connecting communities instead. #yesphx, Mat says, is the perfect community in which to start.
Without the right app or social software, finding perfect “matches” in the entrepreneurial community can be frustratingly difficult. Every entrepreneur and innovator has different goals, and by the time you find someone whose goals align with yours, you’ve wasted heaps of time that could have been spent on your startup. But by recording your own personality traits (and others’), Connect #yesphx can connect you with ten other members of the Phoenix entrepreneurial community and help you form those meaningful, mutually beneficial relationships.
So how do you sign up for Connect #yesphx? You simply request a virtual ticket at Schmooz’s Connect #yesphx link. Soon you’ll be invited to share your goals and preferences, which will later be used to match you with ten other members of the community. Connect #yesphx needs 250 participants to help launch its first phase, meaning it’s totally free to its first members. Participants won’t have to pay until Connect #yesphx is out of beta testing.
If the first phase goes well, Mat and his team at Schmooz hope to launch similar versions of Connect #yesphx in Boulder, Austin, Salt Lake City, and other second-level startup hubs.
“I think #yesphx needs this,” Mat says of Connect #yesphx. “There is no efficient way to connect the community consistently. This could fill that gap.”
To make sure you’re one of the 250 first members to receive Connect #yesphx services for free, grab your virtual ticket today.
