Head of Wichita’s business accelerator ready to start recruiting entrepreneurs

John Dascher is starting up a startup for startups.

Dascher was hired in January to turn the planned e2e business accelerator in Wichita into a functioning reality. His job is to pick small groups of promising entrepreneurs and improve their chances of success by helping them find mentoring, connections and funding.

Dascher has worked in several places as a community-based investment director, most recently in Denmark. He and his wife, Helle Isen Olesen, have three sons.

Q. What have you been doing since you’ve arrived in Wichita?

A. We are funding the actual company, taking care of the administrative aspects of it and implementing the strategic plan to create a sustainable accelerator company, and rallying the troops to support it with their time and funding.

Q. How quickly will you be interviewing entrepreneurs?

A. Three hours ago.

Q. Is the list of potential entrepreneurs long?

A. The target is four to six companies in the first course. If we hold to that, and we probably will, I have a pipeline that I can be somewhat picky and choosy in who I think are the best candidates.

So it’s both a quality and quantity issue, and both are looking fairly positive considering there’s been no dedicated outreach to recruit people.

Q. How likely is it that Wichita will see one of these companies hit $1 million in sales?

A. It is certainly within the sphere of possibility by the end of the year.

Q. What do you like about being a venture capitalist?

A. No person that I interact with is like another, and I interact with everybody you can imagine: from the lawyer to the junior developer to the marketing person. So I have seen some great stuff and been exposed to so many attributes of starting, running, creating and selling a company.

This story was originally published February 3, 2016 at 10:43 AM with the headline "Head of Wichita’s business accelerator ready to start recruiting entrepreneurs."