Alaska Entrepreneurship Week Scopes Stages Beyond Startup

AKEW is the continuation of a program that began in 2013, previously known as Alaska Startup Week. “In 2024, we reset the whole event that was happening. We took what worked; we removed what didn’t work,” Reig-Munoz explained.

Rebranding as AKEW puts greater emphasis on all stages of entrepreneurship. Startups still have a place; the “idea stage” is the theme for Monday’s events, and it’s the day with the most sessions scheduled.

Tuesday’s theme is the pre-profit stage, which is legally formed businesses still operating in the red. Wednesday’s events are for business owners who have stable, profit-making businesses, and Thursday’s events are geared toward business growth and scaling up. Friday’s theme is the exit stage, such as when a business founder sells or closes their company.

The final stage is especially important as Alaska’s population ages. “We’re seeing that in Alaska over and over in the ‘graying’ of our economy,” said Angie Gerken, director of the Anchorage office of the Alaska Small Business Development Center. “Businesses that operated very well and supported themselves and their families are not positioned to sell. Or they overvalue their business. That’s one way we can help.”

AKEW includes sessions in Fairbanks, the Matanuska-Susitna Borough, Anchorage, and Juneau; a statewide webinar ensures that rural entrepreneurs can plug in too. The week is designed to allow participants to attend events in person, virtually, or in a hybrid format. AKEW posts all events on its website, akew.org, as well as on social media. Most of the events are free to attend, but a few require a nominal fee.

Reig-Munoz counted 108 events scheduled throughout the week, as of Monday’s luncheon, but he said the total was changing faster than he could update his slideshow. He added that this year’s AKEW is scheduling twice as many events as last year but with half the budget.

Representative Ky Holland, who has been involved in the startup community since before he was elected to the Alaska House for District 9 in South Anchorage, was looking forward to this week being the most successful ever. “It’s got a legacy of more than ten years of volunteers coming together for a week to celebrate all the activities going on in our startup community,” Holland said. “It’s really an amazing show of all the resources available. These programs continue after this week is over also.”

Stretching from September into October, AKEW is the culmination of a month-long celebration of entrepreneurship, which began with Techstars Startup Weekend the first week of September.