NOTICE: SPICE has been rescheduled for Monday, February 25, 2013 at 6:30 p.m.

SPICE: Speakers Pioneering Innovation, Creativity and Entrepreneurship

Join us in welcoming

Tom Niermann, CEO of Achieve Communication

Mr. Niermann will discuss the common misconceptions that successful startups form because a brilliant idea magically appears in a person’s brain and that the idea’s greatness is readily apparent to anyone who hears it.  Mr. Niermann will go through a process for formulating a startup hypothesis and demonstrate how investors, customers, and competitors may view the startup hypothesis.

Tom Niermann Ph.D. has founded three venture backed software startups in three different markets in the valley in the first 14 years of his career. Two of those went on to be bought by public companies. At those companies he has been CEO, CTO, VP of Engineering, and briefly CFO and VP of Sales. In that time Tom raised 15 rounds of Venture Capital, Angel Capital, Venture Debt, Corporate financing, and he has invested as an Angel in five companies. Tom was most recently the Head of Technology and Program Management for Google's direct partners worldwide. In that role he oversaw the team responsible for the business plan, pricing and product for the strategic partners of AdSense, YouTube, Mobile, and other products. Tom is an active member of the St. Louis Arch Angels, and is currently starting a mobile application company.

For more information on Achieve Communication, visit http://achievecommunication.com/

Please RSVP by Monday, February 18.

Parking is adjacent and complimentary. Light refreshments will be served.

SPICE is an ongoing speaker event to enhance the flavor of engineering education by bringing technology visionaries into direct contact with students and practitioners. The goal of SPICE is to influence the ecosystem by bringing role models in to educate the charms and challenges in realizing breakthrough innovations.

For more information on the SPICE series, visit parks.slu.edu/spice