WeDeliver’s Jimmy Odom Uses CIW Co-op Connections to Grow His Business
Since taking home $100,000 this past June as the Chicago Techweek LAUNCH winner, Chicago-based WeDeliver and its founder and CEO, CIW Co-op member Jimmy Odom, have been making the rounds of the Chicago start-up and media scene.
 |
| Since winning the Chicago Techweek LAUNCH competition in June, Jimmy Odom and his WeDeliver partners (seen here with Mayor Rahm Emanuel) have raised $800,000 in seed money. |
In the past month, the same-day delivery service has grown immensely, taking in $800,000 in seed money, the last $300,000 of which rolled in in just three days. While WeDeliver went from zero to 21 investors and $800,000 in just a few months, Odom is quick to point out that WeDeliver’s backers all come with “smart money,” something he learned to look for from fellow CIW Co-op member and Chicago-area businessman Steven Collens.
“I leaned on Steve to consider the right people for investors,” Odom said, crediting CIW with connecting him to the The Pritzker Group Senior Vice President at the Co-op’s first event in March 2013.
While WeDeliver quickly expanded, going from a team of four to a team of nine today, Odom’s business relationship with Collens was “slowly and organically” growing. Over the past few months, Collens has gone from being a mentor who guided many of Odom’s decisions to being an investor in WeDeliver himself.
Odom’s business ties to Tur Partner Vice President Dan Gibbons similarly strengthened “slowly and organically” after the two first met at a CIW Co-op event. CIW Co-op member Gibbons was instrumental in introducing Odom to influential Chicago businessmen and giving Odom a deeper understanding of the history and future of Chicago innovation. While when they were initially introduced, investment was “never a part of our conversation” at first, eventually Gibbons too became an “engaged” and involved funder of WeDeliver.
“If we weren’t exposed to each other through the Co-op,” Odom concluded of his relationship with Gibbons and of his participation in the Co-op more generally, “we never would have known that there was the opportunity to find WeDeliver a partner with this company and that company… [The Co-op] is such an amazing opportunity for us to get exposed to those people we may never have met.”
