Hey friends,

We’re back with Issue Two of the Driver’s Seat! 

Thanks for the kind notes on last week’s issue. In the first 24 hours of the Driver Seat’s release, we had over 350 subscribers and an open rate of 70%. Pretty cool!

Expect new releases to come out on Mondays. 🚙 

📍 Today’s Topics

1. The History of Consumer Tech in Chicago 🖋

2. Chart of the Week 📊

3. Asks from our Founders 🤝 

4. Guess Who Visited the Drive Chicago Office 🏢

5. Events Around the City 🗺

Have feedback? Just hit reply — I’d love to hear from you.

Let’s dive in!

🖋 The History of Consumer Tech in Chicago

We’re starting today’s Driver’s Seat with some Chicago history.

Why? Because Chicago has a diverse array of industries, making it an ideal city for founders to build just about anything.

However, it's worth noting that consumer companies, aside from Groupon, Grubhub, and Cameo, haven’t always received the recognition they deserve.

So let’s talk about the history of Consumer Tech in Chicago:

Back in 1989, two brothers founded Peapod, which was a grocery shopping and delivery company serving the community of Evanston. At that time, Peapod was one of the earliest companies to provide an e-commerce shopping experience.

Peapod was so early to the web that, to increase business, the company sold dial-up modems, directly helping thousands of people use the internet for the first time.

The company went public in 1997 and was taken private in a buyout deal by an international food distributor in 2001.

During the dot-com boom of the 1990s, Chicago witnessed the birth of many consumer tech companies, including coupon marketplace CoolSavings and Cars.com.

At the height of the dot-com bust, Orbitz was formed in a partnership between major airlines in response to the rise of independent travel sites like Expedia and Travelocity.

Also, FeedBurner, the RSS feed management platform, was launched in 2004 by an improv comedian.

Acknowledging our city's history is crucial to gain a clear understanding of where we’re headed. Those who think that Chicago is not a hub for consumer tech should take a look at our past.

📊 Chart of the Week

Illinois is home to some of the best universities in the country, which produce a large number of highly skilled grads.

In addition, over a third of business school graduates choose to remain in Chicago. This suggests that our city offers a supportive and thriving environment for entrepreneurs.

According to Pitchbook, alumni from Illinois universities have founded over 1,200 companies and raised more than $9.2B in funding between 2015 and 2020.

What's impressive about these alumni founders is that they come from a diverse range of fields, with no single field accounting for more than 10% of all founders.

Our universities have invested substantially in providing exceptional entrepreneurial resources to their student founders. These resources include physical spaces, incubators, and experimental labs. The quality of student founders at our universities can largely be attributed to these investments.

We have a talented pool of individuals at a much more affordable cost compared to other ecosystems.

On the subject of Universities, I’ll be visiting student founders at the eight schools above 👆 in April.

Let me know if you’re interested in meeting or have a suggestion of someone I should connect with while I’m in town.

🤝 Asks from our Founders

We have three companies in the Drive Chicago seed program:

1. Coherence Finance 👾 allows users to invest in ideas, not tokens.

2. JupiterDX 🏥 gives people tailored insights on managing Long Covid.

3. Rivet 🎤 uses AI to help musicians and creators build a personalized fan engagement game plan.

Below are some asks from our founders:

Coherence Finance 👾

• Coherence just launched a newsletter. Feel free to subscribe!

JupiterDX 🏥

• If you have or know anyone struggling from symptoms of long covid, sign up for JupiterDX’s waitlist.

Rivet 🎤

• Searching for a Head of Digital Marketing and Head of Design.

🏢 Guess Who Visited the Drive Chicago Office

We had some special people stop by our office this week!

🗺 Events Around the City

Women in Tech

• Tuesday March 28th

• Hosted by Chicago Blend

• Sign up here

Founder Meet and Greet

• Tuesday March 28th

• Hosted by Founder’s Institute

• Sign up here

The NewSpace Ecosystem in Chicago

• Tuesday March 28th

• Hosted by mHUB

• Sign up here

WMNtech Pitch Competition

• Thursday March 30th

• Hosted by 1871

• Sign up here

Reply to this email if you’re hosting an event that you want mentioned on next week’s Driver’s Seat.

👋 See you next time!

Thanks for making it this far! 😎

Any feedback on how I can improve the Driver’s Seat would be greatly appreciated.

Follow me on Twitter and Instagram for even more Chicago startup news, photos of my favorite restaurants in the city, and cheesy motivational tweets.

Also please share the Driver’s Seat with others 🚙