“Being powerful is like being a lady. If you have to tell people you are, you aren’t.” - Margaret Thatcher
That’s Mike Colwell’s favorite quotation. Based on his 25 years in business, Mike will tell you that doing is much more important than telling. In his role as executive director of the Business Innovation Zone, Mike spends his days coaching, mentoring, consulting, networking and generally asking very tough questions, the kinds of questions most entrepreneurs would rather he did not ask.
After spending more than 20 years in the mobile computing and wireless networking markets, Mike brings his knowledge and battle scars to bear with the goal of making Central Iowa entrepreneurs successful. Focusing on high-growth-potential companies, he works with businesses ranging from a single person with an idea to $10 million companies looking to grow to $25 million. Mike assists with business strategy, business planning, business plan execution and business model development.
Mike is a recipient of the Technology Association of Iowa’s “Investing in Iowa” award for helping to raise more than $4 million for his clients and connecting people to resources in the region.
Mike is a partner in two local startups and is working on a third. Stay tuned!
Growing up in the Cedar Falls-Waterloo area, Mike worked in several of his father’s small businesses. He attended the University of Iowa where he promptly sold his football tickets for a tidy profit, majored in management information systems, minored in computer science, managed real estate and did not focus enough on his GPA.
http://www.linkedin.com/in/colwell
