Building a digital product isn’t easy. That’s why we recruited the help of some experts to share their insights, tips, and know-how on the subject. At the second session of 1871’s Groundwork series -- a set of public workshops focusing on foundational topics for fledgling entrepreneurs -- Kate Samuels, Ryan Francis, and Zak Kates discussed different approaches for building a product as well as tips to minimize complications and boost success.

JOBS! Every week, we highlight a number of open jobs for our member companies. If you're looking for an exciting career in the tech industry or an opportunity to work alongside Chicago's best and brightest, then you've come to the right place. Here are the job openings for the week of August 21, 2018.

FUND Conference returns to Michigan Avenue on October 25th in support of early stage companies and the entrepreneurial ecosystem. If you’re looking to meet active investors, make valuable connections, and learn from prominent business leaders, FUND Conference is the event to attend this fall! FUND connects growing businesses across all industries with accredited investors from over 25 states.

Relish Works and Gordon Food Service join 1871 to announce The Food Foundry, a 16-week accelerator program designed to support, connect, and propel innovative startups with solutions across the foodservice value chain (from farm to table). 

For this week's Our 1871, we chat with new 1871 member Pete Lee, VP Sales, who joined LiveTiles this year to help grow the company in the U.S. with Chicago as a focus. LiveTiles gives developers and business users tools to easily create dashboards, employee portals, and corporate intranets that can be further enhanced by artificial intelligence and analytics features.

Sales Assembly, in partnership with Victory Lap and 1871, announced a new program dedicated to training and developing diverse technology sales professionals for leadership roles within the Chicago tech ecosystem.

Debt, family, work, stress, and service. These are just a few of the many reasons why college students will suspend their studies. Fortunately, Art Caines, a former near-completer himself and the CEO of Max-Grad, is helping this demographic take the final step in their higher education journey.

1871 recently held its Summer Corporate Innovation Summit. The summit, which brings together innovation leaders from both corporations and startups, offered a number of takeaways on how both parties can support each other in their mission to grow business and pioneer new ideas. In case you missed it, 1871's Xenia Mastropetrou and Lari Rutschmann have put together a two-part series highlighting some of the summit's key takeaways. Here's part two of the series. If you haven’t read part one just yet, you can find it right here.

What's it like to be the youngest employee in a fast-growing startup? That's a question that Alexa Jackson, Marketing Manager at AE Marketing Group answers in today's guest post. Here are Jackson's five tips for young team members in today's startup world. 

For this week's Our 1871, we chat with entrepreneur and 1871 mentor Jonathan Pritchard, Founder of Like a Mind Reader. Mentalist, magician, or simply someone who loves to understand how people tick, Jonathan helps clients use human psychology to be better communicators, more influential, more persuasive, and more successful.