 In June, 10 teams of young entrepreneurs came to Columbus to learn how to quickly turn their ideas into commercially viable startups. For 11 weeks, they worked with seasoned mentors and industry experts to prepare business models. Then on September 1, teams presented those plans to investors with the hope to secure more funding. They are now the first graduates of the 10X Accelerator Program, a business boot camp created by the state of Ohio and Ohio State's Fisher College of Business. Here's a recap of the program with Fisher's Michael Kamp and Jobs Ohio President Mark Kwame in this view from the top. The 10X program has been a big success. It really shows how entrepreneurship is alive and well here in the state of Ohio. We've got 10 great teams, some phenomenal mentors that's really helped them. It's really been fun for me to see how they've changed over the last 10 weeks. The teams have raised over $1.2 million in just these 10 weeks and we've got five other teams that have secured strategic partnerships and other teams that have launched websites, new products, strategic partners without raising any money. We've just been impressed with the traction the teams have been able to take on. The small goals, three or four or five of them get funded. I understand three of them are negotiating for term sheets and the hundreds of thousands of dollars really give them the kind of 12 to 18 month runaway to go go. I think the big goals as I said in my opening talk is that a couple of these companies just break out. You know in 2007 Dropbox was at Y Combinator, it's now worth multiple billions of dollars and employs hundreds of people and Airbnb a couple of years ago out of Y Combinator started with $20,000, exact same program. So I think there's an opportunity to create some really big companies. I don't know if it will be in this class or the next class but it will definitely happen. We exceeded every goal we set for the program by large measure. We didn't have a lot of expectations with respect to how far the teams would go. We just wanted to know we could build a program that was, you know, at least would attract the right kind of student and would be able to build companies at some point. But these teams were knocked it out of the park. It's a very competitive environment out there and people are moving very quickly. A lot of people have good ideas, they just don't have, it's the mentorship. It really is not necessarily the money that these folks are being given. It's the fact that they can work with their fellow entrepreneurs. They can work with venture capital investors. They can work with angel investors. They work with everyone up and down the food chain and that's been very helpful. They're going to continue taking away the learnings that they have and the connections with existing mentors and begin to push, independent of 10X, begin to push the same kind of agenda that we introduced them to and that was really only three fundamental things. Number one, develop a functional prototype to prove that somebody wants it and will pay for it. Getting in touch with their customer markets and three, be able to raise the resources you need to continue down that pathway and show traction, prove that you are worthy of the investments you're asking for. I think there's two or three that I really like that I think have the market size, have the entrepreneurial acumen to make it happen. I think there's a fair shot, but it's a funny world. You never really know. I mean, being a venture capitalist for the last 11, 12 years, you always think, oh, this one's going to be the next big one and it doesn't work and then you go, oh, this one, I'm not quite sure and all of a sudden it takes off. So it's really hard to predict. It's not because of the big markets and cool technologies and interesting products, it's the individual people. It's the team members themselves, the passion they share, the energy, the innovativeness and creativity. So the things that I'll miss about each individual team usually reflect back on the individual team member. I think the effort's the last 10 years from everything from the entrepreneurial signature programs to what was done, you know, even before that in the Edison Centers. Also, it's been on the seed funds and angel funds is very encouraging. I mean, we have a great community of seed and angel investors. In addition, some entrepreneurs are doing some really spectacular things. Now we just got to get the word out. We got to get the word out so the larger venture capitalist can see what's happening here in the state of Ohio. And then quite frankly, we need to get lucky. Now we need a groupon like Chicago just recently had or we need a tumbler like what just happened in New York or, you know, obviously a Google or a Yahoo. If we get lucky with one of those and people really see what's happening here and it will basically shine a light on everything that we're doing. We will be launching our second class. It's actually going to run somewhere between January 20th and April 20th. And we are already taking applications. The application is live on our website now. When we originally worked with the state, we agreed to do two classes. So we've always known we're going to do two classes. But the learnings we take away from this one is that we want to keep doing this program. As long as we can assure that we have funding and the mentors are as active as they've been this time, we think we can continue to make a difference. We've asked Michael Kamp and the commission to really sit down and do a full analysis of what's worked and what hasn't. And then we'll decide to go from there. But I suspect we'll expand it across the state. I think we'll probably do, you know, maybe three or four competitions across the state. The 10X program will also move forward as a Techstars affiliate, a nationally renowned accelerator program started in 2006. The affiliation will give the Ohio program access to mentors and resources nationwide. Well, during the course of our series on entrepreneurship in Ohio, we showcased three teams participating in the 10X program. Here's where they are today. Rewardster created an automatic rewards platform that links directly to credit cards and provides consumers with targeted loyalty rewards based on spending habits. The startup was founded by two Ohio State students, Steve Gakup and Eric Herr. The team just launched their software product and is testing it out. Rewardster is also in talks with potential clients, including Saks Fifth Avenue and Cameron Mitchell Restaurants. The team hopes to raise $1 million in funding between now and 2012. We also introduce you to Flare Code. The team made up of Ohio University students is creating a mobile platform to turn objects into digital communities by connecting them with digital content using QR codes. Flare Code plans to go live this month with its first clients, WOUB and the post, OU's student run newspaper. The team also secured nearly $300,000 in additional funding through Tech Growth Ohio. One high tech startup is graduating from the 10X program with a new name as well as a promising future. In Crowd originally started as AdEvo, but the business concept remained the same to create a loyalty and analytics platform for websites that rewards users for their online contributions. Founder Carlos Ramirez says he's excited to launch a beta version this month with his first clients, including Columbus Underground and Kappa Joe. In Crowd has raised $350,000 in funding so far and has a goal of raising an additional $1 million. To see their journey in the 10X program, just go to our website on ntv.com and click on Ohio Mains Business. We wish all the teams the best of luck in the future.