Johnstown Region Startup Meetup fuels networking for local entrepreneurs
About a dozen new entrepreneurs and additional business consultants and veterans gather for a monthly Johnstown Region Startup Meetup. PHOTO: Tribune-Democrat/Russ O’Reilly
Cambria County entrepreneurs, take note! The Johnstown Region Startup Meetup has fully returned from a pandemic hiatus.
The group meets at The City of Johnstown Entrepreneurial Center, 150 Gazebo Park, Johnstown, PA on the first Monday of each month. The next meeting is Monday, May 1.
At the meetups, entrepreneurs have the opportunity to network with peers and business consultants.
The meetup originated in 2013 and has been continuously co-led by Donald Bonk, a Johnstown native and Carnegie Mellon University economic development consultant, and Mike Hruska, founder of Problem Solutions, a company involved in government and commercial technology.
“We want to see more people creating businesses and following their dreams,” Hruska told the Tribune-Democrat. “We try to find out what’s blocking people, what resources or funding they need.”
The meetup includes representatives and entrepreneurial resources from Startup Alleghenies, Johnstown Area Regional Industries, Southern Alleghenies Planning and Development Commission and Ben Franklin Technology Partners.
This meetup is a great connector, helping entrepreneurs network with each other to learn best practices, and also learning about resources that can help them get to the next level.
Startup Alleghenies’ Cambria County Coach Blake Fleegle says that the entrepreneurial meetup is active in launching new businesses in the area. “This meetup is a great connector, helping entrepreneurs network with each other to learn best practices, and also learning about resources that can help them get to the next level.”
The group’s co-founder, Donald Bonk, a Johnstown native whose family was in the local grocery business for 41 years, is currently an economic development consultant for the Office of Government Relations and the Swartz Center for Entrepreneurship of Carnegie Mellon University.
He said that as a leader of the Johnstown Region Startup Meetup, his role is to magnify relationships and connections to help promote business growth development and innovation.
“Every business has to stay on the cutting edge,” Bonk said in an interview with the Tribune-Democrat. “The entrepreneurial meetup is just one more way in which the community is trying to promote entrepreneurship. There are resources in our community that help with entrepreneurship … I think of it as an ecosystem.”
The Entrepreneur Meetup meets at The City of Johnstown Entrepreneurial Center, 150 Gazebo Park, Johnstown, PA on the first Monday of each month, and covers topics like business strategy, professional networking, business referral networking and professional development. More information can be found here.
Startup Alleghenies helps startup and emerging small businesses succeed by providing free coaching to entrepreneurs in Bedford, Blair, Cambria, Fulton, Huntingdon and Somerset counties. To access personal, one-on-one support from a coach in your county, including guidance, resources, tools and networking opportunities, sign up at startupalleghenies.com.
