Tech
community steps out to honor Segals at Momentum Awards
October 10, 2014
Crate & Barrel founder Gordon Segal
Even the
most successful entrepreneurs often make rookie mistakes.
While being
honored for their accomplishments by the Chicagoland Entrepreneurial Center,
Carole and Gordon Segal, founders of retailer Crate & Barrel, surprised the
crowd with a couple of humbling tales about the company's early days.
The Segals
received the Entrepreneurial Champions Award at the annual fundraiser for the
CEC, which operates the 1871 incubator for tech startups at the Merchandise
Mart. J.B. Pritzker, who helped launch the CEC, praised the Segals for “bringing
parts of the world to Chicago and bringing parts of Chicago to the world.”
Ms. Segal
recalled the company's roots, when they were 23-year-old newlyweds fresh out of
Northwestern University, and came up with a business idea after discovering the
simple, sophisticated and inexpensive housewares of the Scandinavian Design
Shop in St. Thomas.
“We didn't
know anything about profit margins or anything else,” she said. “We could have
used 1871.”
Her husband, Gordon, recalled:
“We needed $20,000” to start the business. “We had $10,000, so I went around
offering 50 percent of the company for the other $10,000,” which drew gasps
from the venture capitalists and entrepreneurs in the audience at the Radisson
Blu Aqua Hotel. “Luckily, I never found anyone who would invest.”
The Momentum
Awards attracted a broad mix of entrepreneurs from 20-somethings to old-school
entrepreneurs who were doing startups before it was cool.
KCura Corp., a
fast-growing maker of legal software, won the Merrick Momentum Award, which
spotlights one of the city's fastest-growing tech startups. Michael Ferro,
founder of venture firm Merrick Ventures and founder of the awards dinner, gave
an enthusiastic presentation, channeling Howard Dean, when he reminded the
crowd that Chicago tech startups aren't a recent phenomenon. “This is not a new
thing,” he said. “We've been doing this for 15 years.”
He also gave
a shout-out to former Mayor Richard M. Daley for his support of tech startups
and emphatically proclaimed that Crate & Barrel, despite being best known
as a retailer, is a “tech company.”
Motorola Mobility won the Corporate Champion award for its support
of entrepreneurs and startups. The company, which recently moved its
headquarters into the Merchandise Mart, is a backer of an accelerator for
women-run tech startups that's set to launch at 1871. It also has partnered with startups under a program launched by Gov. Pat Quinn's
Innovation Council called the Corporate/Startup Challenge.
CEO Howard Tullman noted that 1871's 25,000-square-foot
expansion at the Merchandise Mart will open next
week "on time and on budget,” two things not often associated with Chicago
construction projects.
Follow John on Twitter at @JohnPletz.
