The Team.

Vernon is a longtime South Minneapolis resident. He's spent years coaching product teams and leaders through product and agile transformation in large organizations, while also working alongside entrepreneurs on the discovery and visioning work that comes with building something new. These days, much of that energy goes toward supporting small businesses across Minnesota. Vernon gets the most joy from the early phases of that discovery process, helping people turn the spark of an idea into something real. When it comes to AI, he believes entrepreneurs go into business to pursue a vision and solve real problems, not to spend all their time on paperwork and the other mundane parts of running a business. He believes AI can help entrepreneurs spend more time on the parts of the business that give them the most energy and joy.

Justin grew up in South Minneapolis and still calls it home. Over the past few decades, he's built his career around one idea: how do we get more impactful product and business ideas off the ground and out into the world? Justin has deep expertise on the innovation process, having worked with large and small organizations, including hundreds of early stage entrepreneurs. He gets a lot of energy from helping aspiring entrepreneurs navigate the Twin Cities entrepreneurial ecosystem, and mentoring businesses at the earliest stage of having an idea all the way through launching it into the world. More recently, he's put energy into understanding AI and exploring how it can help business owners test ideas, drive growth, and work smarter.