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10 Hartford Business Journal • May 11, 2015 www.HartfordBusiness.com NCCJ THANKS YOU! NCCJ would like to thank all of those who supported this year's Annual Human Relations Award Banquet. Your contributions go directly to supporting our social justice educational programming for youth in the Greater Hartford area. PREMIER SPONSORS PLATINUM SPONSORS Aetna | Hartford HealthCare | PCC Technology LLC Prudential Financial| Rosenberg Family | Zachs Family GOLD CIRCLE Hartford Business Journal | The Travelers Inc. SILVER CIRCLE Bank of America/U.S. Trust | The Barnes Group | BNY Mellon | Bob's Discount Furniture Foundation Cheryl Chase & Stewart Bear Family Foundation | CohnReznick | Hartford Distributors | Karl Krapek Mandell Family Foundation | MML Capital Partners | Phoenix Companies, Inc. | PricewaterhouseCoopers BRONZE CIRCLE Berkshire Bank | BlumShapiro | Carling Technologies | Comcast | Connecticut Children's Medical Center Day Pitney | Farmington Bank | Hartford Steam Boiler | Hebrew Health Care | Hinckley, Allen & Snyder Hoffman Auto | Jewish Federation of Greater Hartford | Kaman Corporation | Max Restaurant Group People's United Bank | Reid & Riege | Robert Samuels | St. Francis Hospital and Medical Center | Siegal Family SBM Foundation | TD Bank | Trinity College | United Bank | Updike, Kelly, & Spellacy | Webster Bank Thank you for making Connecticut more inclusive and just for all. d i f f e r e n c e s c e l e b r a t i n g "As the Hartford ecosystem continues to grow for startups, it's going to be an invaluable tool," Fraser said of Reality Crowd TV and VICN. Startup pivot Reality Crowd TV is itself a startup, hav- ing launched 1.5 years ago with co-founder Jessica Sun, who retains an ownership stake. "We were going to be the 'Shark Tank' with- out the bite, a reality TV show about crowd- funding," Sfinarolakis says. When the company began, Sfinarolakis envisioned the world being the sharks and the company mentoring entrepreneurs for their launch, sharing the launch process with the world live on-air. First, he planned to crowdfund Reality Crowd TV and did a nine- city promotional campaign for it early last year, hosting mock shows and panel discussions to educate entrepreneurs about crowdfunding. "I wanted to be the guy to say I crowdfund- ed my own company and now I can potentially help you crowdfund yours," he says. "That didn't happen, but people still wanted my help." So he pivoted last spring, halting the show concept and making Reality Crowd TV more of an online educational forum, including crowdfunding webinars and making it a vir- tual event company. Then, from April 2014 to December, he helped about 10 entrepreneurs whose crowd- funding raised about $825,000. There were another 10 startups whose campaigns failed to meet funding goals; Sfinarolakis only consulted for about 10 percent of the people seeking his help, with the other 90 percent unable to afford his services or lacking a viable idea or business. Sfinarolakis said the failures hurt and he didn't like charging entrepreneurs strapped for cash, so he developed VICN, an online commu- nity of experts to help entrepreneurs. "VICN is for the 90 percent," he says. Since launching in January, VICN has more than 2,100 members sharing and talking to each other, he says. Joining is free, but he envisions making money from sponsorships like one he just sold for $5,000 to a company that builds tools for crowdfunding. n MURRAY: A lot of borrowers are look- ing to fix rates. We offer them the financial instruments that allow them to lock in the rate for the long term. Q: How does the commercial lend- ing environment in Connecticut com- pare to other markets People's United does business in? TENGEL: We continue to see steady growth across our footprint, with consid- erable strength in the New York and Boston markets where we continue to expand. The amount of activity and size of the market provide additional opportunities, despite significant competition. n Q&A: Commercial Loans Virtual Incubator