Bootstrapping Kickstarter – Investors Association event May 26
On Tuesday, May 26 at 7 p.m., Ƭapp will host a free workshop on Kickstarter, the world's largest crowdfunding marketplace that is one of the quickest ways to access cash to fund a new business venture. It will be led by Mark Noonan and Dr. Doug Lyon.
Entitled “Bootstrapping Kickstarter,” the event will explore engineering, entrepreneurship and the process of attracting a large number of investors online to pledge relatively small amounts of start-up money. It will be held in Ƭapp’s DiMenna Nyselius Library Multimedia Room (101).
The event is part of a series of talks and workshops at Fairfield for entrepreneurs. It’s co-sponsored by the School of Engineering and Dolan School of Business, in collaboration with the Inventors Association of Connecticut (IACT).
Mark Noonan, successful entrepreneur and president and founder of Nootools LLC, has built a product concept portfolio of over 50 products, with five in the market at various stages. His presentation will cover actual case histories from his latest Kickstarter campaign for dog leashes and will illustrate the challenges of building a business from concept inception to the global marketplace.
Noonan’s first major success was the “Wovel,” a wheeled snow shovel now sold globally under its current brand, “Snow Wolf.” His most recent new product is the unique “Leaf Loader” which gained market entry only 18 months from inception.
Doug Lyon, PhD, professor of computer engineering at Ƭapp, will offer insights into outsourcing using Freelancer, the world’s largest freelancing, outsourcing and crowdsourcing marketplace. Dr. Lyon’s discussion will include average costs, follow up tactics (is there life after Freelancer?) and success rates.
Mr. Noonan holds a BA degree in economics from Duke University and an MBA degree in marketing and finance from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business. He has spent the prior six years developing and launching new products, and nearly 20 years in corporate finance and investment banking, designing products and marketing to “Fortune 100” companies both in the U.S. and abroad.
Dr. Lyon is chairman of the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at Ƭapp, a licensed professional engineer, a senior member of the IEEE, President of DocJava, Inc. and CTO of Lyon-Ratafia and president of the Inventors Association of Connecticut. Dr. Lyon teaches engineering entrepreneurship and has brought one successful Kickstarter project to market. He received his PhD, MS and BS degrees in computer and systems engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Dr. Lyon has worked at AT&T Bell Laboratories and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and has authored or co-authored three books and over 49 journal publications.
For more details on the Inventors Association of Connecticut, visit .
