Gangplank Tucson invites the community to celebrate the grand re-opening of our new collaborative workspace located downtown in the historic Pioneer Building at 100 N Stone Ave, Suite 110 on Wednesday, May 22 from 5:30pm-9:30pm.

Gangplank is a non-profit, collaborative workspace without physical or financial barriers providing resources and education for local entrepreneurs and businesses. Focused on economic and community development, we seek to unite the creative class, bringing together diverse minds to create something greater than the individual and drive entrepreneurship and civic engagement.

5:30 – 6 Food, Drinks, Networking
6 – 7 Welcome Keynote, “Startup Standup” (Startup Pitches)
7 – 9 Tours, Food, Drinks, Networking

Since opening in November 2011 out of the Bookmans Exchange Center, Gangplank has provided free business mentoring, technology workshops, networking opportunities, incubation, and instruction on how to grow innovative ideas into viable products, programs and public services. Our local partners include the Arizona Center for Innovation, Bookmans, Desert Angels, Downtown Tucson Partnership, Holualoa Properties, Intuit, Startup Tucson, and the Arizona Technology Council.

The transition downtown has been made possible by the Pioneer Building owner Holualoa Companies, where president I. Michael Kasser has donated the rent for the first six months. The new downtown location provides us the opportunity to benefit more businesses, build a stronger municipal partnership, and continue building our community initiatives in a more centralized location. We look forward to making a big impact downtown and helping to build a new economic engine in southern Arizona.

We need your help to make that transformation possible. The following is the list of needs for the new space, and if you, your business, or someone you know has the ability to provide the materials or labor listed, please contact our director Aaron Eden at aaron@gangplankhq.com to discuss how we can work together. Thank you in advance for your time and consideration.

Immediate Needs

• Painting (fulfilled)
• Paint (fulfilled)
• Internet Networking (fulfilled)
• Wireless Routers (fulfilled)

Before May 13

• Projector Screens & Wall Hangings (labor)
• Stackable Chairs
• Garbage & Recycle Bins

Before May 22

• Renovation of Cubicles (labor)
• Floor Installation (labor & materials)
• Security / Badge System (labor & materials)
• Refrigerator
• Kitchen Sink & Counter Top (labor & materials)
• Espresso Machine & Supplies
• Dishes
• Plaques (labor & materials)
• Signage (labor & materials)
• Projector (fulfilled)

Last May, I left my boxy little job as University of Arizona faculty to build LeadLocal, a community development organization disguised as a leadership training program—LeadLocal provides hands-on coaching for interns and young professionals as they complete consulting projects for nonprofits or small businesses in town.

My co-founders and I created LeadLocal as a way to give back to the community. And we’ve been doing just that. Since January, LeadLocal has provided approximately $25,000 to nonprofits in Tucson through in-kind business consulting.

We’re proud of our contributions, but we are always looking for more ways we can add value in our community…and we were fortunate to find Gangplank.

As a mom and a social entrepreneur, I was drawn to Gangplank because it embodies what I want my family and my company to be: welcoming and helpful. To me Gangplank = sharing. I respect that.

In my few short months as a Gangplanker, I have learned and grown more than I think I have contributed. And so I want to say THANK YOU and to share the most valuable lessons I’ve learned from my short tenure with Gangplank:

1. It’s your job to smile when someone new walks in the room.
2. You don’t have to be formal. You just can’t be sloppy.
3. People who don’t want to help don’t show up.
4. You should always be the first one to share.
5. Pirate flags are cool!

Thank you to all the Gangplankers who have welcomed LeadLocal on deck!

Lease and Keys

• Aaron will have keys and lease agreement in the early part of the week of April 15th
• Once the lease agreement is signed, the move will take place on Saturday, April 20th

Carpet and Paint

• Discussion was held on renovations that need to take place before the April 20th move
• Carpets may not have not been cleaned since last tenant. Robin has scheduled a commercial cleaner to come in and see if carpet needs to be replaced.
• Aaron met with Holualoa April 9. They are adding approval of modifications to the lease. They are also going to look if they have carpet squares that are used in other parts of the building.
• Paint will be needed for the new space

Internet

• Ben and Robin are discussing options with Cox
• Aaron is seeking out Wifi routers

Moving Tasks

• Paul is coordinating with Jacob and Chad about the moving truck and logistics calculated in their moving plan
• Aaron is contacting current Anchors to box up their personal items
• Aaron is reaching out to volunteers for the take down of the desks and the physical move downtown
• Details of the assistance needed will be forthcoming

Topics Related to moving into the new downtown space:

Internet 

• Bookmans has agreed to be out backup if we are unable to get Cox to donate and/or discount our internet in the new space.
• Robin and Ben are going to meet with Cox in the next few weeks to try to lock this down.

Insurance Policy

• Aaron was able to get the Gangplank HQ contact for setting up insurance.  We should be good to go on this when it comes time to move.

City of Tucson IT

• Aaron and Sean met 4/1 with David Shousch and discussed possible partnership opportunities.  They would like to run a collaborative hack-a-thon sometime in May.

Pima County Economic Development

• They have 2 RFP funding opportunities that they will be sending us for short term funding.
• For long term there is an opportunity for partnership on Small Business Development Center.  We would like to experiment with taking a U of A intern, and Intuit employee and a local small business.  The Intuit and U of A folks will embed themselves with the small business in an effort to help the business grow.  It is a win for all 3 participants and the accomplishes specific things the county is after.

Art to Display

• Jim Harris toured the space and is willing to display his art in the new space.
• Jim Harris is having prints made and will have them ready for the move-in date.

Downtown Move

• We have set a tentative 4/20/2013 move date to downtown.   Once Aaron meets with Stan Shafer next week we hope to lock this date in
• Will also discuss requested renovations with him
• We are targeting 5/22/2013 as our downtown grand re-opening celebration
• Robin, Aaron & Justin submitted an RFP to the city of Tucson last week to try to secure funding for this year.

Fund Raising Campaign

• We will be conducting a fund raising drive in conjunction with all of the meetings with the city / county to secure funding for the 2nd 6 months downtown.
• Brooke created a few fund-raising packages as well as a potential donor list
• Aaron has installed a crowd-funding plug-in on the gangplank website which we can use to begin fund raising.
• We will break the campaign into 3 phases.
  • Move in:  This phase is all about getting paint & carpet into the new space and getting us relocated
  • Grand Re-Opening:  In this phase we will focus on finishing the kitchen, doing some renovations and getting a security system installed
  • First Year:  This third phase will focus on securing rent for our 2nd 6 months and securing additional furnishings

Events

Lean Launchpad 3.0

• Starting 3/30
• 4-5 Teams committed

Lean StartIN: Non-Profit Edition

• In collaboration with Lead Local and Intuit we will be hosting a 2 day Lean Startup competition for local non-profits
• Non-Profits are:
  • Imagine Greater Tucson
  • Desert Museum
  • Tucson Women’s Foundation of Southern AZ
  • Microbusiness Advancement Center
  • Women’s Business Center
  • Imago Dei
• The final presentations for these teams will be followed by our grand re-opening celebration
• We are in need of some portable white-boards for this event.

Startup Job Crawl – Wednesday – 4/3 – 15 startups, 65 students

http://www.insidetucsonbusiness.com/news/gangplank-ready-to-move-into-downtown-office/article_ba29f8ca-97d2-11e2-beff-0019bb2963f4.html

We will only accept 6 teams of entrepreneurs that are passionate, curious and extremely agile. Each team member must be able to commit to 15 hours per week of customer discovery as well as purchase 2 books for the course (noted below).

We promise, you’ll learn more in this 8 week course than many entrepreneurs learn in their entire career!

Course Agenda:  (Saturdays from 9am+)

• Week 1: 3/30 – What To Expect & First Pitches – 3 hours
• Week 2: 4/06 – Customer Segments – 4 hours
• Week 3: 4/13 – Value Propositions – 4 hours
• Week 4: 4/20 – Channels – 4 hours
• Week 5: 4/27 – Customer Relationships – 4 hours
• Week 6: 5/04 – Revenue Models & Key Partners– 4 hours
• Week 7: 5/11 – Key Resources & Costs – 4 hours
• Week 8: 5/18 – Lessons Learned Presentations & Celebration – 5 hours

Books to Purchase:

Startup Owners Manual – Steve Blank

Business Model Generation – Alexander Osterwalder

Click below to register and then email aaron@gangplankhq.com with your team member names, contact information, bios, Business Model Canvas and a short description of your business idea to apply today!

Our goal is to keep rent and maintenance of the mansion low so entrepreneurs can squeeze the most out of their finances and focus on their work.  There will also be regular collaborative sessions where all of those living in the house can put their brain power and skills together to help out their roommates on their respective projects.  Entrepreneurs will also receive high impact coaching & mentoring from investors, entrepreneurs and business leaders.

We expect the  mansion to be ready for move in around August 1st 2013.  We are currently accepting applications from passionate entrepreneurs that want to change the world!

Apply now!

Previous commitments:

• Aaron & Tank – Keep promoting standups – Completed
• Ben Reynwar – See if we can get some chairs / whiteboards from county surplus. – Need an update from Ben
• Jacob Kaliszewski – See if we can get some chairs / whiteboards from UofA surplus. – Need an update from Jacob
• Roger – Setup google voice # for GPT - Created
• Bob – Finish inventory of Intuit donated computers. – Need an update from Bob
• Chad Lehrman – Identify ideal time of day for moving. - Need an update from Chad
• Aaron – Send Chance our downtown proposal. – Completed
• Chance Agrello – Send Aaron downtown parking map. - Completed
• Dan Janes – Talk to Desert Angels about low interest loan to get us downtown sooner. – Need an update from Dan
• Aaron – Talk to Holualoa about giving us a lower cost ramp up. - Completed (waiting on return call from Stan)

Updates:

Aaron Eden

• Met with Imagine Greater Tucson about partnership.  They will be hosting 2 upcoming brownbags.
• Met with LeadLocal about partnership, a lean startup event for Tucson Non-profits. They also provided me with a connection to the community outreach person from Cox so I can contact them about providing internet for us downtown.
• Met with Sean from Bookmans.  They have re-keyed the storage door so your front door key will now open the storage closet.  We also discussed the existing contract and he noted that if we were not able to provide a 60 day notice for moving it won’t be a problem as it saves Bookmans money.   They would also like for Bookmans to remain involved going forward.  He is going to forward our downtown proposal to the mayor who is a personal friend of his.
• Lean Launchpad coming soon – We have 2 volunteers helping to plan / setup for the next Lean Launchpad.  We are targeting early March for the event to begin.  You’ll see more on the blog / facebook / twitter soon.
• Gangplank Visioning date / time – I still have not been able to lock down a date for this event.  If I’m waiting on you to respond, please do so SOON.
• Thomas Smallwood is going to be hosting an  IOS development class soon.  More details as I have them.
• We are running thin on brownbag speakers and need to book out brownbags for Feb / Mar.  Please submit your ideas to http://gptucsonbb.uservoice.com
• I am working on scheduling a meeting with Chris Kaselemis (City of Tucson Economic Development) to share our proposal with him.
• I am waiting on Andrew Greenhill to connect me with City of Tucson IT director.  If you know him, please connect me.
• We have a few grant opportunities – Who can help us apply for them?
• Talked with Holualoa and things are looking positive for them to give us a lower cost ramp-up time.  Possible a few months free and the remainder at the agreed upon reduced rate.  This may buy us some time to get the City / County on-board.

Elliott Kelley

• On Tuesday the first real estate hunter training had about 17-18 people attend. It went really well and he also has a couple of folks coming in regularly.
• Would like another espresso machine in the new space.
• He will be doing level 3 investor training next Tuesday and expects 40-50 people here.   Would like someone to talk about GP on Tuesday at the beginning of his meeting.

Roger Harmon 

• Got Google Voice number setup for Gangplank Tucson.   He is looking for volunteers to connect their phones to this new number.
• We had 2 new drop-ins yesterday and Scott & Roger welcomed them.

Robin Breault & Brooke McDonald

• Attended Startup Tucson: Startup Drinks. Made good connections.
• First stand-up so they didn’t have an other updates.

Paul Holze

• Working on creating video promotion.
• He put together a blog post to solicit more interest in sharing perspectives about Gangplank.  If you would like your ideas to be included in the video promotion, please talk to Paul.

Commitments

• Robin – Taking a look at U of A Auctions which take place Monday.
• Aaron to send Grant details to Paul to pass to Stephanie & LeadLocal
• Roger to submit Evernote brownbag idea to uservoice.
• Elliott to submit “Favorite apps for smartphones” idea to uservoice
• Elliott to contact Kristy Droux about speaking on “Raising capital / taking companies public, etc.”
• Aaron to setup his IpPhone to forward.
• Robin will be submitting a blog post that showcases their new LeadLocal business.
• Paul - Going to Startup Tucson meeting next Tuesday to get more insights and perspectives from Gangplankers.