Stories by Marc Eisen

This edition of my Isthmus tech column hits several topics, including  web startups by former state Rep. Helen Kelda Roys and serial entrepreneur Toni Sikes. Here’s a chunk:

Roys’ passion and hard work (she knocked on more than 20,000 doors in her first election) are two of the reasons venture capitalist Troy Vosseller cites for his investor group, the well-regarded (and oddly spelled)gener8tor, backing Roys’ venture. OpenHomes offers a software platform that connects homebuyers and sellers in a way that promises to save big bucks for both.

Cofounder Scott Rouse, who worked at Shoutlet, StudyBlue and Asthmapolis, handles the tech end. Roys, who is an attorney and real estate agent, knows the business end.

“I started selling real estate at 19,” she says. “I was in college in New York City and had to earn money.”

Roys wound up graduating from New York University in three years (her major: drama, politics and cultural studies) and then attended law school at UW-Madison.

The OpenHomes game plan proved beguiling enough to attract a $20,000 gener8tor investment and three months of mentoring from the edgy investment group, which runs “accelerator” shops in Madison and Milwaukee for its portfolio of startups.

To read more, please  go here.

These are the other items:

This entry was posted on August 13, 2013 at 12:30 pm and is filed under Development, Tech, TheDailyPage.com/Isthmus. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments.

Tags: Coworking, downtown Madison, Helen Kelda Roys, Toni Sikes