Bill Gordon

Bill Gordon is a serial entrepreneur and angel investor. He have been working to spur entrepreneurship in the state of Connecticut since June 2009, when together with Steve Smith and Kip Bergstrom they began to imagine and catalyze the creation of the Stamford Innovation Center at Stamford's Old Town Hall. In the end he chose not be part of the ownership or management of the the Stamford Center itself but was pleased that it finally came to fruition in 2012 as part of the statewide CT Innovation Ecosystem. Andy Moss and he collaborated to participate in the CT Innovation Ecosystem's first year by launching Lean Launch Ventures to run accelerator programs in partnership with CT Innovations, the venture capital arm of the state. They used a Lean Startup curriculum to run the program in the offices Canaan Partners in Westport. In March 2013 They launched our inaugural accelerator program together with CT Innovations supported by a mentor group of over 40 talented individuals from their combined networks. The program ran until the end of June 2013 when they graduated our first class of 5 exciting young companies all on the road to creating new jobs in the State of CT. In September 2013 Bill Gordon joined the graduate faculty of the School of Visual Arts to teach entrepreneurship and leadership together with Karen Proctor to masters level students in the Design for Social Innovation program started by my friend Cheryl Heller. It was a full year course where 7 new companies were built by the second year class that received their MFA degrees in May 2014. We think the combination of collaborative leadership taught in the context of the students' own startup experiences is a unique offer.