Many of us here in Minnesota remember Lief Larson. He was known and respected widely in our startup community. He had a successful exit with an interactive kiosk company before going whole hog into a software startup. A few years ago, he moved to Seattle after handing over the CEO reins at that VC-backed software company, Workface Inc. I miss him, and I’m sure others do, too. Not only was he a ball of energy, a smart developer and product guy, but a really fun guy, too. And, as a founder, he was the best damn salesperson I’ve ever worked with in Minnesota. He began life in Seattle living on a boat with his wife in the trendy Fremont section. And he’s definitely loving life out there in the Pacific Northwest.

Once he moved, his entrepreneurial endeavors hardly stopped. Soon, he’d launched Engage.co, and not long after a sideline called Sportzy, a leisure sports and activity site. Always one to spot a new opportunity, Lief recently told me he and a colleague launched a new site called Planning to Retire.

“My buddy and I both have parents entering retirement and they keep asking us all these questions, so we decided to build a site to help them,” said Lief.  “We’re trying to capture 1,000 members in 30 days.”  So, friends, tell all your parents and relatives who are approaching that magical age about this great new site. It’s a really helpful resource for them!

Gettin’ old? Sign up now!

My Background With Lief
A little history: I was lucky enough to do some consulting work for Lief back in his Workface days — including traveling with him twice to big events in California. I really enjoyed the experience and found myself writing about him several times on this blog. Those posts go back more than five years, covering his journey with Workface (which he founded in 2006), his ties to Marissa Mayer (they grew up together in Wisconsin), and how he took on an educational effort for entrepreneurs all by himself here in Minneapolis called “SaaS Camp,” which I attended. Here are all those posts.

In one of them, I told the following story, which still makes me laugh today every time I think of it. Not only is Lief an amazing, hard-working entrepreneur, but the man knows how to have some fun!

Lief and I traveled to Palo Alto a couple years ago for a conference where Lief was pitching to the Silicon Valley VC community, along with a bunch of other hot startups, and sharing the stage with speakers like the founders of Salesforce and SuccessFactors. We stayed in a funky old, ’60s-vintage Travelodge motel — about as low-priced as we could find in Palo Alto. After we checked in to our respective rooms, we both went online to work. First thing I see is an email from Lief with a photo attached of this gorgeous, expansive hotel room, saying, “Wow, I hope your room is as nice as mine.” I never laughed so hard, because I could hardly turn around in my dinky little room, and I knew he couldn’t either… 🙂

I haven’t had an opportunity to get out to Seattle since Lief moved there, but you can bet I’ll be meeting up with him the next time I do. Go, Lief!

(NOTE: This post first appeared on GraemeThickinsOnTech yesterday.)

Startups are popping up all over, and St. Paul’s Macalester College is no exception. It’s doing its part to support entrepreneurial students in its student body. The Mac Startups program is back for a second year after a successful pilot program in 2014.

Another group of motivated students has spent this summer learning about entrepreneurship and developing their startup ideas into real products and businesses. The college says the program is similar to the fellowship model it uses for academic research projects. It provides the selected  teams of students with coworking space, housing, funding, and resources. But, essentially, it’s a student-run entrepreneurship incubator.

Here’s how the program works: the teams identify problems in the Twin Cities community (and beyond) and develop creative products and services to solve these problems. Their projects range from a mobile app for group decision making, to a platform for sharing homecooked meals, to a home composting pickup service.

While working on their ideas this summer, the Mac Startups students have also been engaging with the entrepreneurial community in the Twin Cities by attending meetings and hosting events on campus, as well as by holding workshops. Each team was paired with an alumni mentor with expertise relevant to their project.

On September 10th, from 12:30 to 2:00 pm, the teams will be showcasing their work at a “Demo Day” event on the beautiful Macalester campus. The event will feature short pitches from each of the Mac Startups teams, as well as a light lunch and some great networking with members of the startup community, faculty and student leaders, and some notable Mac alumni, including Seth Levine of the Boulder, CO-based VC firm Foundry Group. This year’s Demo Day is an official event of Twin Cities Startup Week.

Get ready to see some great demos from this year’s batch: ArtDefy, NÜDL, Plannd, Unanimus, VendFresh, CoArt Designs, and Hop In.

I attended last year, and I was honestly blown away by the energy and smarts of the highly motivated Mac students who presented! And their startup concepts were very well thought out. I’m betting this year will be even better.

I encourage you to attend. For details and to register, just go the Eventbrite page. See you there!