Silicon Couloir welcomes new executive director
Rob Kellogg has worked with entrepreneurs across the county, comes to Jackson via Colorado.
By Zoe Naylor
When Rob Kellogg first came to the cowork space at Silicon Couloir in the summer of 2021, he just needed a quiet place to get some work done. Little did he know he would become the executive director of the startup enterprise and coworking space three years later.
Is it a full circle moment for him? “Sort of is, yeah,” he said.
Kellogg began as executive director this month after years of working with entrepreneurs across the country, co-founding a startup himself and teaching entrepreneurship at the Watson Institute in Boulder, Colorado, for the past six years.
The San Francisco native was introduced to the world of entrepreneurship while doing his master’s research at a nongovernment health organization, a microenterprise, in northern India.
He then returned to Washington, D.C., and ended up working in “responsible investments,” helping investors integrate environmental, social and governance factors into their decision-making.
“The bedrock of the U.S. economy is actually small businesses,” he said. “It’s not large companies. I think it’s really important — especially in this area, where the cost of living is getting expensive — to be able to support people who want to start businesses and employ people locally here.”
Now, Kellogg is jumping in the deep end with this new position. The first round of Silicon Couloir’s annual Pitch Day event is well underway.
Through June 28, entrepreneurs in the Teton region have the opportunity to pitch their business to a selection committee to see who will get to present their pitch at the event on Oct. 9.
“It’s a competitive process,” Kellogg said.
During August and September, the hardworking and lucky entrepreneurs will receive coaching from mentors on how to strengthen their pitch — everything from adding specific data and business projections to their presentations to management styles and workshopping the oft-neglected but everimportant soft skills required to successfully start a business. That last factor is important to Kellogg.
With a master’s degree in organizational leadership and strategy, he knows that sometimes the best ideas don’t come with the best managers. But a good startup must have both. Kellogg aims to integrate more soft skills into the mentorship curriculum at Silicon Couloir so entrepreneurs are as well-rounded as they can be.
“You’ve got to deal with the hard skills for an entrepreneur, but you’ve also got to help them with the soft skills,” he said. “Communication. Coachability. And teaching empathy, humility and how to manage people — all those leadership qualities.”
Looking ahead, the new executive director has big plans for Silicon Couloir. The nonprofit is set to expand to the Casper area, its first step outside the Teton region, with potentially more expansion from there. He also hopes to start a “peer cohort” at Silicon Couloir.
There is already a well-established mentor-mentee structure at the organization, but what’s missing is what Kellogg described as a “peer support group” — where entrepreneurs can meet with those in the same level of development as they are — not so much for advice but for behind-the-scenes camaraderie and solidarity.
For hopeful entrepreneurs, Kellogg had a few words of wisdom. He said there were three qualities that help new business owners thrive.
The first was humility. “People who have humility and are coachable strongly correlate to having successful outcomes as entrepreneurs,” Kellogg said.
The second: “You have to be able to answer ‘Why me?’ and explain one’s “competitive advantage.” That includes tangible skills but also experience that might not on the surface be translatable to other fields but that entrepreneurs know make them wellequipped for a position.
Finally, having a personal connection to the mission of a startup is crucial, he said. “The most successful founders are people who have had a direct correlation to the problem they’re trying to solve.”
Though he’s been around the block, having been an entrepreneur himself, Kellogg exercises that humility in this new position.
“I’m still in a learning phase,” Kellogg said, and referenced a few aspects of the nonprofit where he was still getting his sea legs.
Over the next several months, Kellogg’s wife and 18-year-old son will be completing their move to Jackson to join him. Kellogg looks forward to exploring the area with them and fly-fishing in his spare time.
On his first day as executive director, Kellogg had a bare-bones office. The only things in it were a standing desk (his favorite part of a workspace), two filing cabinets and a vase holding five lily buds.
Contact Zoe Naylor by emailing intern@jhnewsandguide.com.