Startup Grind

Startup Grind is one of the biggest communities of entrepreneurs. Our mission is to help every entrepreneur in the world. We do so by hosting a monthly recurring event to inspire, educate, and connect entrepreneurs.

The Speaker

Rob Wise is a self-proclaimed entrepreneur since his early days of washing cars, cutting grass, recycling cans, and setting prices or selling items at garage sales. As a boy, Rob enjoyed doing hard work, leaving something better than he found it, and helping people. As an adult, he manages to find the same fulfillment in business by impacting and inspiring those around him at ITinspired where he is the CEO and co-owner.

In seven years, ITinspired has grown to a staff of twenty people and hit several milestones along the way. Notable achievements include ranking 2,584th on the Inc5000 list in 2018 as one of the nation’s fastest-growing companies, Inc.'s Best Places to Work in 2018 and 2019, the 2019 and 2020 Louisiana Growth Leader Award, and LSU's Top 100 Tiger Led Businesses of 2019.

Rob serves on non-profit boards for Junior League of Baton Rouge, Leadership Baton Rouge Alumni, Manfulness Living, and the Arts Council of Greater Baton Rouge. He's been honored as a member of the LSU L-Club, Baton Rouge Business Report's 2018 Forty Under 40, 2017 Leadership Baton Rouge class, 2019 Leadership Louisiana class, Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses graduate & alumni ambassador, and the Young Entrepreneur Academy of BR mentor ambassador. 

Pitch Competition

We're giving 3 entrepreneurs an opportunity to pitch their idea/startup! The pitch competition is designed to help local entrepreneurs with early-stage companies (or even an idea) to gain exposure and experience when it matters most. The judges will be the audience who will vote live at the end of all three pitches. Each pitch is two minutes followed by a 4 minute Q&A.  

Apply to pitch

Agenda

5:00 PM Pitch Competition 

5:45 PM Fireside Chat w/ Rob Wise