Software company ready to launch

The following is an excerpt from a South Bend Tribune article about a start-up Web-based software company co-founded by Marketing Professor Joe Urbany and Gary Gigot, Notre Dame alumnus, Business Advisory Council member and benefactor of the Gigot Center for Entrepreneurship. To read the entire article visit: Software company ready to launch


Gary Gigot recalls noticing a change in Notre Dame's startup culture a few years ago.

Students were no longer just taking classes on entrepreneurship. More and more of them were actually starting their own businesses.

Gigot, a Notre Dame alumnus and benefactor of the university's Gigot Center for Entrepreneurship, remembers talking about how South Bend's talent pool and low costs would present an interesting opportunity for someone who wanted to start a company here. Heck, someone might even move here from the West Coast to do it.

"The last person I thought was going to do that was me, but that's exactly what's happened," he said with a laugh. "It's ended up to be a bit of a prophecy."

Gigot, a Seattle-based investor and adviser, co-founded a Web-based software company last year with Joe Urbany, a professor in the Mendoza College of Business at Notre Dame. The software, named Vennli, is built on concepts Urbany developed while teaching MBA students.

Vennli is designed to help businesses develop and execute growth strategies.

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