{"id":174,"date":"2014-11-14T17:41:37","date_gmt":"2014-11-14T22:41:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.montclair.edu\/entrepreneur\/?p=174"},"modified":"2018-05-08T13:52:48","modified_gmt":"2018-05-08T17:52:48","slug":"montclair-state-alums-connect-with-startup-guru-publish-book","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/entrepreneur\/2014\/11\/14\/montclair-state-alums-connect-with-startup-guru-publish-book\/","title":{"rendered":"Montclair State Alums Connect with Startup Guru, Publish Book"},"content":{"rendered":"

Crowdfunding site Kickstarter helped Matt Cartagena<\/a> not only raise money, but connect with one of the nation\u2019s top funders of startups and land a publishing deal.<\/p>\n

Cartagena, a Montclair State alum, was noticed by Brad Feld<\/a> during a Kickstarter campaign to raise money to self-publish the book \u201cAccelerate.\u201d Cartagena co-authored the book with fellow Red Hawk alum Luke Deering<\/a>, and Chris Dowdeswell<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The co-authors began tagging Feld, co-founder of Foundry Group<\/a>, in tweets about the Kickstarter campaign for the book, which features 18 startups that had gone through Feld\u2019s Techstars<\/a> program. After Feld kicked in some money, the trio asked him to write the forward for \u201cAccelerate,\u201d and he agreed.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was excited,\u201d said Cartagena about connecting with Feld. \u201cThat was big for us. It really couldn\u2019t have turned out much better.\u201d<\/p>\n

“Accelerate\u201d includes interviews with entrepreneurs who participated in an accelerator, and delves into what they learned from the experience. The book began as a blog<\/a> by Deering and Cartagena.<\/p>\n

\"accelerate<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cWe had loads of content and decided why not do a Kickstarter campaign and turn this into a book,\u201d said Cartagena, who has received two degrees from Montclair State\u2014a bachelor\u2019s in finance and economics in May 2011 and an MBA in August 2014. Cartagena also received a Certificate of Entrepreneurship<\/a> from the university’s Feliciano Center for Entrepreneurship<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The successful Kickstarter campaign raised about $13,000, according to Cartagena.<\/p>\n

But the Feld connection wasn\u2019t done yet. Feld reached out to the \u201cAccelerate\u201d authors, telling them he was creating and investing in a new publishing company, FG Press, and asked if they would\u00a0want \u201cAccelerate\u201d to be the third book published by FG Press.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe thought it was a really good fit for marketing purposes,\u201d said Cartagena. \u201cBrad is very well-connected\u2026we really couldn\u2019t think of a much better affiliation than him and his company.\u201d<\/p>\n

It all might not have happened without Montclair State. Cartagena met Deering on campus, when he was thinking of switching from a business major to nutrition. Deering, who received his finance\/economics degree from Montclair State in 2008, convinced Cartagena to stick with business. Deering would become a mentor to Cartagena, who began helping Deering with his startup, VineUp<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Cartagena said his mom, who works in real estate, influenced his decision to become an entrepreneur. After working about 18 months in corporate jobs, Cartagena decided to pursue his MBA full time at Montclair State<\/a> so \u201cI\u2019d be able to dip my toes in some other projects.\u201d Those other projects included the blog with Deering.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s really the connections,\u201d said Cartagena about how meeting Deering eventually led to the publication of \u201cAccelerate.\u201d \u201cHe\u2019s been a mentor to me. He showed me this was possible\u2026he\u2019s been absolutely invaluable as a mentor.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Crowdfunding site Kickstarter helped Matt Cartagena not only raise money, but connect with one of the nation\u2019s top funders of startups and land a publishing deal. Cartagena, a Montclair State alum, was noticed by Brad Feld during a Kickstarter campaign to raise money to self-publish the book \u201cAccelerate.\u201d Cartagena co-authored the book with fellow Red […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[14,27,40,67,98,102],"class_list":["post-174","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-accelerate","tag-brad-feld","tag-chris-dowdeswell","tag-fg-press","tag-luke-deering","tag-matt-cartagena"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/entrepreneur\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/entrepreneur\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/entrepreneur\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/entrepreneur\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/21"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/entrepreneur\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=174"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/entrepreneur\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":206961,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/entrepreneur\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174\/revisions\/206961"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/entrepreneur\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=174"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/entrepreneur\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=174"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/entrepreneur\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=174"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}