The second annual San Antonio Entrepreneurship Week kicks off Monday and, according to organizers at LaunchSA, it will be bigger and more dispersed than its first.
Currently, LaunchSA has 50 percent more people registered than last year, with 600.
Rather than coalescing around downtown, events will take place at 11 locations throughout the city: from Port San Antonio on the southwest side to St. Philips College on the near east side, to the Medical Center in the northwest.
LaunchSA director of programming Ryan Salts said the week is about connecting people with ideas, with ideas of where to go next.
"You'll find workshops and things that are concrete,” he said. “You'll walk away with actual skills and development of those skills, but at the same time you'll also see the experienced entrepreneur.”
Eighty one speakers, including former Spurs star David Robinson, will be on hand talking about everything from social impact investing to culinary startups.
Jerry Wilmink, founder of biotech wearables company WiseWear, is one of those speakers.
Wisewear has gone from 100 square foot office at Geekdom to 5,000 square feet and an eight-person staff.
Wilmink said by picking the brains of the founders of San Antonio tech giant Rackspace, he finally broke through the mental barriers of starting a business.
"From a psychological standpoint, seeing and meeting with people have done it, is really really critical," Wilmink said.
Wilmink said next week's events creates those opportunities.
Paul Flahive can be reached at paul@tpr.org or on Twitter @paulflahive
