SCN Las Vegas 2025

Start your morning at the New Nevada Frontiers breakfast, hosted by gener8tor, where innovation meets inspiration over coffee and conversation. Attendees will enjoy a delicious breakfast and choose their own adventure:
Option 1: Business Development Panel
Dive into strategies for scaling startups and navigating funding with a panel of ecosystem leaders and capital connectors.
Panel Host: Hua Wang, gener8tor
Panelists:

• Ryan Weissmueller, Fintrepid
• Carla Jewell, StartUpNV’s SSBC
• Saul Ramos, U.S. Small Business Administration

Option 2: Poolside Founder Chats
Prefer something more casual? Grab your plate and join founders from gener8tor for laid-back, poolside conversations. Hear their stories, share ideas, and spark connections in a relaxed, open-air setting.

Explore what it means to create belonging.  

Red Rock Canyon was designated as Nevada's first National Conservation Area.  Red Rock Canyon is located 17 miles west of the Las Vegas Strip on Charleston Boulevard/State Route 159. In marked contrast to a town geared to entertainment and gaming, Red Rock offers enticements of a different nature including a 13-mile scenic drive, miles of hiking trails, rock climbing, horseback riding, mountain biking, road biking, picnic areas, nature observing and visitor center with indoor and outdoor exhibits as well as a book store.
In 1990, special legislation supported by the Nevada congressional delegation, changed the status of the Red Rock Recreation Lands to a National Conservation Area, the seventh to be designated nationally. This legislation provides the funding to protect and improve the area. Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area is enjoyed by the local population as well as visitors from the United States and many foreign countries

What if we could redesign our regional economic strategies knowing what we know now? In this dynamic panel, we’ll flip the script on traditional models of institutional support for startups and small businesses. Join leaders from across the country as they reflect on how universities, government agencies, and innovation hubs have historically supported founders—and how those systems could evolve to better serve diverse entrepreneurial communities.

This conversation invites you to view community and economic development through an institutional infrastructure lens. From funding flows and success metrics to partnerships and policy, we'll explore what we might do differently if given the chance to start again. Together, let’s reverse engineer the future of ecosystem design—one that’s more inclusive, adaptive, and aligned with founder realities

Roses & Thorns is a staple at every Startup Champions Network Summit: A safe space to talk about what drives us, what keeps us up at night, and why we do it anyway.  

You're in for a treat! Jarrett Applewhite, CEO and Founder of Cootoh, will be serving bites as we wrap up Roses & Thorns and head to Pitch Mayhem. Cootoh is a marketplace for private chefs on demand. They were a 2024 Techstars Alum and recently was invited to present at CES 2025 as one of Vegas’ most promising startups!