Ryan Broshar

Partner

Minneapolis, MN

I am an entrepreneur at heart who has been working on startups for my entire career. I’ve been a founder, a community builder and now, an investor. I love scheming up huge, audacious ideas and turning them into reality.

I started my first venture when I was 7 years old, harvesting and selling sweet corn door to door in my hometown in Iowa. While lucrative, I’ve since gone on to be the founder of multiple startups including University Guide; a university-based publication business that I started while at the University of Minnesota, and sold two years out of college.

Following this sale, I moved to Boulder for my MBA at CU-Boulder. While there, I dug into the startup communities movement. The energy around tech and startups in Boulder acted as a catalyst for me to start something similar when I moved back to the Twin Cities in 2012. In short order, I co-founded Beta.MN, Twin Cities Startup Week and the Techstars Retail Accelerator w/ Target. These programs have had an outsized impact on the local startup community and continue to operate today.

I’m a dreamer. I get energized thinking about what “could be,” then digging in to find ways to make it a reality. I’ll always challenge entrepreneurs to think bigger. And I know what it takes to drive big outcomes and the grind founders must go through to get there.

I love founders from atypical backgrounds. I relate to diverse, humble founders who have a chip on their shoulder and identify as the “underdogs.” They assemble humble, hard-working teams obsessed with the problems they are solving. Real problems that are worth solving.

When not working with founders, you’ll find me hanging with my wife, Molly, chasing around our three little children. As a former outdoor trip leader, I try to spend all my free time in the outdoors—biking, skiing, running, boating, hiking, mountaineering—you name it.

Bio

  • 3x Founder with 2 exits
  • Former Managing Director for 3 Techstars Retail Accelerator in partnership with Target programs
  • Investor in 60+ companies
  • Founder of Beta.mn and Twin Cities Startup Week
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