{"id":5258,"date":"2016-09-26T21:22:44","date_gmt":"2016-09-26T21:22:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thinkerventures.com\/?p=5258"},"modified":"2016-09-26T21:22:44","modified_gmt":"2016-09-26T21:22:44","slug":"fishing-for-funding-in-chicago","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thinkerventures.com\/fishing-for-funding-in-chicago\/","title":{"rendered":"Fishing for funding in Chicago"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.fishwithme.net\/\">FishWithMe.net<\/a>, the online matching program that hooks fishermen with other enthusiasts to share costs and expertise, will be at Chicago\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fundconference.com\/\">FUND Conference<\/a>, which begins Tuesday, Sept. 27.<\/p>\n<p>The three-day annual conference, taking place at the <a href=\"http:\/\/uicforum.uic.edu\/\">UIC Forum<\/a> on 725 W. Roosevelt Road in Chicago, is billed as the Midwest\u2019s largest deal conference. More than 140 startups or early-stage companies will show off\u00a0their products, services or ideas to angel investors, venture capitalists, private equity firms and crowdfunders.<br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/thinkerventures.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/FishWithMe-logo.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-5259 alignright\" src=\"https:\/\/thinkerventures.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/FishWithMe-logo-300x107.jpg\" alt=\"fishwithme-logo\" width=\"300\" height=\"107\" \/><\/a><br \/>\nFishWithMe.net was started in Rockford in 2014 by Rock Valley College business professor and avid fisherman <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fishwithme.net\/about\/\">Stacy McCaskill<\/a>. It\u2019s the only web-based network that helps everyday anglers find fishing buddies to share always rising costs and to learn and share tips and techniques.<\/p>\n<p>FishWithMe.net took second place in the 2014 <a href=\"http:\/\/www.eigerlab.org\/fastpitch-competition\/\">NIU EIGERlab FastPitch competition<\/a> &#8211; the 2016 Fastpitch Competition takes place this Wednesday\u00a0&#8211; and worked\u00a0with Rockford\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/thinkerventures.com\/\">Thinker Ventures<\/a> to refine its business model, create the website and\u00a0expand its marketing. At the FUND Conference, McCaskill and her team will be introducing FishWithMe.net to a large network of Chicago-based investment firms as well as investors from Dallas to Silicon Valley.<\/p>\n<p>The eventual goal of FishWithMe.net is essentially to become the Match.com of the recreational fishing industry. More than 60 million people fish at least once a year, according to the American Sportfishing Association, only running and biking have more participants. Those fishermen spend nearly $50 billion per year on fishing equipment, transportation, lodging and other expenses.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>FishWithMe.net, the online matching program that hooks fishermen with other&hellip;<\/p>\n<p> <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/thinkerventures.com\/fishing-for-funding-in-chicago\/\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":9390,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","filesize_raw":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[10,7],"tags":[14],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thinkerventures.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5258"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thinkerventures.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thinkerventures.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thinkerventures.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thinkerventures.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5258"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thinkerventures.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5258\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thinkerventures.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9390"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thinkerventures.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5258"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thinkerventures.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5258"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thinkerventures.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5258"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}