3 Questions with the New Techstars Class: GameWisp

Q&A with Andrew Wynans, Founder & CMO GameWisp

It’s that time again! Last week, Techstars welcomed its Summer 2014 class into 1871’s downtown Chicago Merchandise Mart space. Over the course of a 90-day period, Techstars offers startups $118,000 in seed funding, intensive mentorship, and a vast network of mentors and alumni for 7-10% equity in each company. After an intensive application process, 10 startups, 6 of which are originally Chicago-based, made the Techstars roster. Let’s meet them!

The guys at GameWisp ready to work out of Techstars Chicago

1. If you had to describe your company in one sentence, what would you say?

GameWisp is a platform for gamers to share and interact with gaming video.

2. What led you to become a part of Techstars & 1871?

Techstars is an incredible program. We were drawn to Techstars primarily for the ability to work with great mentors and to be able to focus on building and growing our company. While we have a strong technology team, our knowledge and experience is limited in other areas. Techstars allows us to gain insight from mentors who have been in our position and been successful.

GameWisp has, until now, been a part-time venture, worked on at all hours of the night and on weekends. Techstars gives us the ability to focus on the company in a way that we never could prior to this opportunity.

1871 is a really a great place to get to come to work everyday. We have really enjoyed working here over the past few days and are excited to continue to engage with the space over the summer and in the future.

3. What are 3 things that get you excited about working out of Chicago?

The City. Our company is based out of Nashville, Tennessee. Nashville is an amazing town and we are definitely proud to be representing Music City here at Techstars, but we are excited to experience all the great opportunities that a big city has to offer including, of course, deep dish pizza and Chicago-style hot dogs…

The Technology Community. Nashville has a growing tech scene that has really begun to come into its own lately. They have been amazingly supportive of us. But we are certainly excited to be able to interact with Chicago’s tech community and to network with great local start-ups.

The Investor and Mentor Community. GameWisp is a two-sided marketplace at its core. Chicago has an amazing community of experienced operators and investors who have built these sorts of businesses many times. Through Chicago and Techstars, we hope to leverage the knowledge and experience of these experienced people to help us build GameWisp into a successful marketplace.

Read more about GameWisp here.
Read more about Techstars Chicago here.