WEB SITES
PartnerUp Inc. helps
entrepreneurs locate
people to help
by Beth Ewen
PartnerUp Inc. hit 10,000 users as of June 1 ? that is, 10,000 people who had filled out member profiles at the Web site launched in April, says its founder, Steve Nielsen. That?s about double what he expected by this point.
Nielsen, a 2003 college graduate with a background in I.T., got the idea when he was trying to start another company and searched fruitlessly for an electrical engineer with a particular design background.
The idea of the site is ?to help people put together an entire start-up team,? he says, including board members, executives, advisers and employees. The site is national, with Minnesota being one of its top four markets, he says.
Users fill out a profile, including a compensation profile that indicates if they?ll accept equity in the company in lieu of salary, for example.
He makes money from advertising and the sales of premier memberships, which allow users to go straight to people seeking employment, board or investor opportunities.
PartnerUp has 11 people, including subcontractors, ?unfortunately in five locations,? he says, including a data center in downtown Minneapolis, its headquarters in Eden Prairie, and a couple of programmers on the East and West coasts. ?It drives me nuts? to have people all over, he says, because he never knows quite where everyone is.
Steve Nielsen, PartnerUp Inc.: 952.229.8300; st****@*******up.com; www.partnerup.com