Mike Schmidt - CEO at Ensemble Ventures, LLC, Director at Velocity Innovation Partners, LLC and Council Member at CIO Colorado

Mike Schmidt, Founder & CEO
Ensemble Ventures, LLC
Colorado Springs, Colorado

Overview:

Strategic Business Development and Tactical marketing and sales professional/ entrepreneur with integrated skills in both technology and marketing/sales disciplines. Twenty-five plus years of international start-up company experience and management-level consulting engagements with clients worldwide.  Currently engaged with a wide variety of small seed and development stage companies in Colorado in the areas of alternate energy, healthcare IT, and Internet/Telecom, Wireless, and SaaS Software and Cloud Services ventures.

Technical Skills include; new product design, development, project planning, software definition and creation, and product engineering prototype work, manufacturing support, and logistics.  Marketing/sales skills encompass; advertising, promotion, public relations, trade show coordination, publications design, direct mail campaigns, seminars, customer training, technical support, sales management, sales training, and account management  Management experience includes; management of company profit centers, project teams, forecasting, budgeting, and start-up of companies in the US, UK, and Asia. Comfortable with new start-up companies and product/service offerings. Have traveled extensively both domestically and internationally in the USA, Canada, Central and Latin America, UK, (Wales, Ireland, Scotland), Europe, Central and Latin America, Asia, and South Africa.

Specialties:

Fast Track Sales Experience: Eastern Regional Sales Growth Experience of 230% over quota managing instrumentation sales reps over 6 months that led to promotion to create and lead a new Industrial Computer Division in the factory automation and data acquisition marketplace to generate sales over $5 Million in 12 months as the National Sales Manager of a new Industrial PC division inside an existing $15M Data Acquisition & Controls Company.  Extensive ISP/Internet Service Experience:   Have owned and operated 2 separate ISP's from 1995 through 2008 offering ATM/Fiber-based broadband internet, intranet and extranet services, web-hosting, streaming audio and video services, audio and video web-streaming services, digital audio satellite-two-web streaming services (1996) as well as fixed licensed 39Ghz and unlicensed wireless WiFi services.

For a Detailed Bio on LInkedIn:  http://www.linkedin.com/in/mikeschmidtev

Current Engagements/Projects:
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Ensemble Ventures, LLC.
Founder & CEO
Management Consulting industry
May 2001 to Present (10 years 1 month)

10+ Year old Business Development Venture Ventilator based in Colorado Springs assisting seed stage and development oriented companies with strategic business development and product/market positioning tactics, and services. Develop capital formation plans, solicit funding and partnership alliances for clients and company-owned ventures.
For more info: http://www.ensembleventuresinc.com

Also, Ensemble is the primary sponsor of the Colorado Springs Entrepreneurs Group, a growing local small business entrepreneurs group developing and supporting Colorado Small Businesses, and creating an Entrepreneurial Culture in the community. Mr. Schmidt is the Chairman of the CSE Group.
For more info: http://www.colospgsbiz.org


CIO Colorado
Council Member
Public Policy industry
November 2010 to Present (7 months)

One of the Founding Council Members of the organization. The mission of CIO Colorado is to optimize the environment for new businesses in Colorado to create new jobs resulting in a revitalization and growth of the Colorado economy. Collectively, the goal of all of the efforts of CIO Colorado is to make the State of Colorado the best state within the United States in which to form and grow a small business resulting in new employment to replace all jobs and wages lost since 2008. We are developing proposed small business legislation, developing capital formation initiatives for small business, and collaborating with constituent economic development groups at the local, regional and state levels.
For more info: http://www.ciocolorado.com


Velocity Innovation Partners, LLC
Director
Venture Capital & Private Equity industry
June 2009 to Present (2 years)

Denver-based company with seasoned executive management team developing new capital formation solutions for Colorado to create a number of alternative funding sources for small businesses and entrepreneurs. Looking to develop Direct To Public Offerings, (DPO's) local or regional stock exchanges, and pursue legislative changes to allow direct state investments into companies, (like the Texas model). Pursuing investment funds and strategic alliances with key Colorado-based partners.

 

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